j  His  Rights  and  Wrongs,  | 

^ 

|  The  Forces  For  Him  and  Against  Him.  I 


BY 

Rev.  Francis  J.  Grimke,  D.  D., 


0 


Washington,  D.  C, 


|  “  Right  is  right,  since  God  is  God,  | 
1  And  Right  the  day  must  win.”  | 

iiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiniHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiHiiiiiiiiimmiimimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii; 


\ 


THE  NEGRO: 


His  Rights  and  Wrongs, 

The  Forces  For  Him  and  Against  Him. 


BY 


Rev.  Francis  J.  Grimke,  D.  D. 


Washington,  D.  C. 


“Right  is  right,  since  God  is  God, 
And  right  the  day  must  win.” 


“Slow  are  the  steps  of  Freedom,  but  her  feet 
Turn  never  backward:” 


“Though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet 
’tis  Truth  alone  is  strong.” 


“  They  enslave  their  children’s  children 
who  make  compromise  with  sin.” 


» 


/ 


CONTENTS: 


0(  Oi 


Page 

Sermon  I.  Discouragements.  Hostility  of 

the  Press.  Silence  and 
Cowardice  of  the  Pulpit, 

Etc. _  i 

Sermon  II.  Sources  from  which  .no  help 

may  be  expected, — the  gen¬ 
eral  government,  political 
parties,  Etc. _  25 

Sermon  III.  Signs  of  a  brighter  future _  48 

Sermon  IV.  God  and  Prayer  as  Factors  in 

the  struggle _  72 


These  sermons  were  delivered  in  the  Fifteenth  Street 
Presbyterian  Church,  Washington,  D.  C.,  November  20th 
and  27th,  and  December  4th  and  nth.c^They  are  published 
by  request,  and  are  sent  forth  in  the  ‘nope  that  they  may 
be  blessed  of  God  to  the  good  of  both  races. 


germon  L 


Discouragements.  Hostility  of  the  Press, 

Silence  and  Cowardice  of  the  Pulpit,  Etc, 

■“Wait  on  the  Lord;  be  of  good  courage,  and  He  shall 
strengthen  thine  heart.1’ — Psalm  27:14, 

DESPONDENCY  is  a  state  of  tnind  in  which  all 
fooling  seems  to  be  lost-— a  feeling  of  dis¬ 
couragement,  the  disposition  to  give  up,  to 
cease  to  struggle.  Such  a  state  as  Elijah  fell  into 
towards  the  close  of  his  remarkable  and  stormy  life. 
There  is  no  more  pathetically  sad  picture  in  the 
whole  Word  of  God  than  that  in  which  the  prophet 
is  seen  in  the  wilderness  sitting  under  a  juniper 
tree — the  very  picture  of  despair.  For  years  he 
had  labored  hard  for  the  reformation  of  his  coun¬ 
trymen.  He  saw  the  people  rushing  headlong  into 
idolatry  and  every  form  of  wickedness,  and  under 
the  direction  and  inspiration  of  the  Almighty,  he 
threw  himself  with  all  the  energy  and  impetuos¬ 
ity  of  his  nature  into  the  work  of  reforming  them. 
Like  all  reformers,  however,  he  met  with  opposi¬ 
tion  and  indifference.  But  he  kept  pegging  away, 
until  at  last  success  seemed  about  to  crown  his 
efforts.  A  great  meeting  was  arranged  to  be  held 


2 


at  Mount  Carmel,  in  which  the  point  at  issue  wa 3 
to  be  decided,  and  which  resulted  in  favor  of 
Elijah.  The  fire  which  fell  from  heaven,  and 
which  consumed  the  burnt  offering  and  the  wood 
and  the  dust,  and  licked  up  the  water  that  was  in 
the  trench,  attested  the  divine  approval  of  Elijah’s 
course,  and  the  power  and  superiority  of  Elijah’s 
God.  It  was  so  interpreted  by  the  people.  The 
cry  which  it  elicited  from  them  was  “The  Lord, 
He  is  the  God,  the  Lord,  He  is  the  God.”  The  pro¬ 
phets  of  Baal,  some  four  hundred,  were  slain  with¬ 
out  opposition  from  the  people  :  and  even  the  king 
seemed  to  have  acquiesced  in  the  victory  at  Car¬ 
mel.  Just  as  the  prophet  was  congratulating 
himself,  however,  over  the  triumph  of  the  right, 
his  hopes  were  all  blasted,  and  he  was  forced  to 
flee  for  his  life.  The  record  is,  “And  Ahab  told 
Jezebel  all  that  Elijah  had  done,  and  withal  how 
he  had  slain  all  the  prophets  with  the  sword. 
Then  Jezebel  sent  a  messenger  unto  Elijah,  saying, 
So  let  the  gods  do  to  me,  and  more  also,  if  I  make 
not  thy  life  as  the  life  of  one  of  them  by  to-mor¬ 
row  by  this  time.  And  when  he  saw  that,  he  arose 
and  went  for  his  life,  and  came  to  B'eer-sheba, 
which  belongeth  to  Judah,  and  left  his  servant 
there.  But  he  himself  went  a  day’s  journey  into 
the  wilderness,  and  came  and  sat  down  under  a 
juniper  tree  ;  and  he  requested  for  himself  that  he 
might  die  ;  and  said,  It  is  enough  ;  O  Lord,  take 
away  my  life  ;  for  I  am  no  better  than  my  fathers.” 


3 


This  wail  of  despair  is  again  heard  at  the  Mount 
of  God,  “And  as  he  lay  and  slept  under  a  juniper 
tree,  behold,  then  an  angel  touched  him,  and  said 
unto  him,  Arise  and  eat.  And  he  looked,  and 
behold,  there  was  a  cake  baked  on  the  coals,  and  a 
cruse  of  water  at  his  head.  And  he  did  eat  and 
drink,  and  laid  him  down  again.  And  the  angel 
of  the  Lord  came  again  the  second  time,  and 
touched  him,  and  said,  Arise  and  eat  ;  because  the 
journey  is  too  great  for  thee.  And  he  arose  and 
did  eat  and  drink,  and  went  in  the  strength  of 
that  meat  forty  days  and  forty  nights,  unto  Horeb, 
the  Mount  of  God.  And  he  came  thither  into  a 
cave,  and  lodged  there.  And,  behold,  the  word  of 
the  Lord  came  unto  him,  and  said  unto  him,  what 
doest  thou  here,  Elijah  ?  And  he  said,  I  have  been 
very  jealous  for  the  Lord  God  of  hosts,  for  the 
children  of  Israel  have  forsaken  thy  covenant, 
thrown  down  thine  altars,  and  slain  thy  prophets 
with  the  sword  ;  and  I,  even  I  only,  am  left ;  and 
they  seek  my  life  to  take  it  away.0  Elijah  felt 
that  if  the  three  years  and  a  half  of  famine,  and 
the  extraordinary  and  overpowering  scenes  which 
had  been  so  recently  witnessed  at  Carmel  did  not 
soften  the  hearts  of  the  people  and  the  rulers,  and 
lead  them  to  repent  of  their  sins  and  do  better, 
nothing  would  :  and  therefore,  that  it  was  vain  to 
continue  the  struggle  longer.  “It  is  enough;  O 
Lord,  It  is  enough.”  That  is,  there  is  no  use  of 
trying'  any  longer.  The  picture  presented  here 


4 


becomes  still  more  striking  when  we  remember 
the  sturdy  character  of  the  man  of  whom  we  are 
speaking.  He  was  no  reed  shaken  by  the  wind* 
no  weakling  ;  but  a  man  of  great  strength  of 
character,  and  of  remarkable  courage.  He  was 
not  afraid  to  confront  Ahab,  though  he  knew  he 
had  been  in  search  of  him  everywhere,  with 
the  murderous  intent  of  putting  him  to  death. 
Nor  was  he  afraid  when  he  met  him  to  speak 
plainly  and  in  terms  to  rebuke,  “  I  have  not 
troubled  Israel,  but  thou  and  thy  father’s  house, 
in  that  ye  have  forsaken  the  commandments  of  the 
Lord,  and  thou  hast  followed  Baal.”  And  yet,  it 
is  this  grand  old  warrior,  this  man  of  a  hundred 
battles,  this  man  who  was  a  host  in  himself,  and 
whose  presence  is  symbolized  by  chariots  and 
horses  of  fire,  in  the  scene  where  he  is  translated, 
who  sinks  into  despair,  who  is  overwhelmed  by 
the  seemingly  insurmountable  obstacles  with 
which  he  is  confronted. 

Moses,  also  came  very  near  sinking  into  a  simi¬ 
lar  state,  if  indeed  he  did  not  actually  fall  into  it, 
under  the  crushing  weight  of  solemn  responsibili¬ 
ties  which  rested  upon  him  as  the  divinely  appoint¬ 
ed  leader  of  the  people  in  their  exodus  from 
Egypt.  It  was  a  tremendous  responsibility  to  lead 
two  millions  of  people  out  of  bondage,  especially 

in  the  condition  in  which  the  Israelites  were _ 

ignorant,  besotted,  with  little  appreciation  of  the 
blessings  of  freedom,  who  cared  more  for  the 


5 


fleshpots  of  Egypt  than  they  did  for  liberty,  for 
independence.  The  result  was,  before  they  had 
gone  very  far  trouble  began  ;  they  began  to  mur¬ 
mur,  to  find  fault,  to  regret  that  they  were  ever 
disturbed  in  their  Egyptian  homes,  where  they 
had  plenty  to  eat  and  drink,  and  which  seemed  a 
paradise  to  them  compared  to  the  experiences 
through  which  they  were  then  passing.  The  re¬ 
cord  is,  “And  the  mixed  multitude  that  was 
among  them,  fell  a-lusting  :  and  the  children  of 
Israel  also  wept  again,  and  said.  Who  will  give  us 
flesh  to  eat  ?  We  remember  the  fish,  which  we  did 
eat  in  Egypt  freely ;  the  cucumbers,  and  the 
melons,  and  the  leeks,  and  the  onions,  and  the  gar¬ 
lic  :  but  now  our  soul  is  dried  away — there  is 
nothing  at  all  besides  this  manna,  before  our  eyes. 
Then  Moses  heard  the  people  weep  throughout 
their  families,  every  man  in  the  door  of  his  tent  : 
And  Moses  said  unto  the  Lord,  Wherefore  hast 
thou  afflicted  thy  servant  ?  And  wherefore  have  I 
not  found  favor  in  thy  sight,  that  thou  layest  the 
burden  of  all  this  people  upon  me  ?  Have  I  con¬ 
ceived  all  this  people  ?  have  I  begotten  them,  that 
thou  shouldst  say  unto  me,  Carry  them  in  thy 
bosom  as  a  nursing  father  beareth  the  suckling 
child,  unto  the  land  which  thou  swearest  unto 
their  fathers  ?  Whence  should  I  have  flesh  to 
give  unto  all  this  people?  for  they  weep  unto  me, 
saying,  Give  us  flesh  that  we  may  eat.  I  am  not 
able  to  bear  all  this  people  alone,  because  it  is  too 


6 


heavy  for  me.  And  if  thou  deal  thus  with  me, 
kill  me,  I  pray  thee,  out  of  hand,  if  I  have  found 
favor  in  thy  fight  ;  and  let  me  not  see  my  wretch¬ 
edness.”  Here  is  also  the  wail  of  a  soul  on  the 
verge  of  despair.  Like  Elijah  his  cry  also  is,  It  is 
enough,  take  away  my  life.  David  also  knew 
what  it  was  to  be  depressed.  In  the  forty-second 
psalm,  and  fifth  verse,  we  read,  “  Why  art  thou 
cast  down,  O  my  soul,  and  why  art  thou  disquieted 
within  me  ?”  And  again,  “  O  my  God  my  soul  is 
cast  down  within  me.”  And,  into  this  frame  of 
mind,  we  are  all  liable  to  fall  at  times  ;  doubtless 
some  of  us  already  know  from  sad  experience 
what  it  is  to  be  dejected,  cast  down,  despondent. 

I  have  touched  upon  this  subject  this  morning 
because  as  a  people,  I  am  afraid,  there  is  danger, 
in  view  of  the  terrible  ordeal  through  which  we 
are  now  passing,  and  have  been  passing  for  some 
time,  of  losing  heart;  of  coming  to  feel  as 
Elijah  did,  It  is  enough  :  there  is  no  use  of  con¬ 
tinuing  the  struggle. 

The  way  is  certainly  very  dark.  There  are 
many  things  to  discourage  us  ;  but  there  is  a 
brighter  side  to  the  picture,  and  it  is  of  this  side 
that  I  desire  especially  to  speak.  Before  doing  so, 
however,  it  may  be  well  for  us  to  notice  in  passing 
some  of  the  things  which  seem  to  indicate  the  ap¬ 
proach  of  a  still  deeper  darkness. 

And  first,  lawlessness  is  increasing  in  the  South. 
After  thirty-three  years  of  freedom,  our  civil  and 


7 


political  rights  are  still  denied  us  ;  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  amendments  to  the  Constitution  are 
still  a  dead  letter.  The  spirit  of  opposition,  of 
oppression,  of  injustice  is  not  diminishing  but  in¬ 
creasing.  The  determination  to  keep  us  in  a  state 
of  civil  and  political  inferiority  and  to  surround 
us  with  such  conditions  as  will  tend  to  crush  out 
of  us  a  manly  and  self-respecting  spirit  is  stronger 
now  than  it  was  at  the  close  of  the  war.  The  fixed 
purpose  and  determination  of  the  Southern  whites 
is  to  negative  these  great  amendments,  to  elimi¬ 
nate  entirely  the  Negro  as  a  political  factor.  And 
this  purpose  is  intensifying,  is  growing  stronger 
and  stronger  each  year.  The  sentiment  every¬ 
where  is  :  This  is  a  white  man’s  government.  And 
that  means,  not  only  that  the  whites  shall  rule,  but 
that  the  Negro  shall  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  governmental  affairs.  If  he  dares  to  think 
otherwise,  or  aspires  to  cast  a  ballot,  or  to  become 
anything  more  than  a  servant,  he  is  regarded  as 
an  impudent  and  dangerous  Negro  ;  and  according 
to  the  most  recent  declaration  of  that  old  slave¬ 
holding  and  lawless  spirit,  all  such  Negroes  are  to 
be  driven  out  of  the  South,  or  compelled  by  force, 
by  what  is  known  as  the  shot-gun  policy,  to  re¬ 
nounce  their  rights  as  men  and  as  American 
citizens. 

This  is  certainly  a  very  discouraging  condi¬ 
tion  of  things,  but  the  saddest  aspect  of  it  all  is, 
that  there  are  members  of  our  own  race —  and  not 


8 


the  ignorant,  unthinking  masses,  who  have  had  no 
advantages,  and  who  might  be  excused  for  any 
seeming  insensibility  to  their  rights,  but  the  in¬ 
telligent,  the  educated — who  are  found  condoning 
such  offenses,  justifying  or  excusing  such  a  con¬ 
dition  of  things,  on  the  ground — that  in  view  of 
the  great  disparity  in  the  condition  of  the  two 
races,  anything  different  from  that  could  not 
reasonably  be  expected.  Any  Negro  who  takes 
that  position  is  a  traitor  to  his  race,  and  shows 
that  he  is  deficient  in  manhood,  in  true  self-respect. 
If  the  time  ever  comes  when  the  Negro  himself 
acquiesces  in  that  condition  of  things  then  his  fate 
is  sealed,  and  ought  to  be  sealed.  Such  a  race  is 
not  fit  to/  be  free.  But  thank  God  the  cowardly, 
ignoble  sentiment  to  which  I  have  just  alluded, 
while  it  may  find  lodgment  in  the  breast  of  a  few 
weak-kneed,  time  serving  Negroes,  is  not  the  sen¬ 
timent  of  this  black  race.  No,  and  never  will  be. 
During  all  these  terrible  years  of  suffering  and 
oppression,  these  years  of  blood  and  tears,  the 
Negro  has  been  shot  at,  his  property  destroyed,  his 
family  scattered,  his  home  broken  up  he  has  been 
forced  to  fly  like  the  fugitive  for  his  life  before  the 
hungry  bloodhounds  of  Southern  democracy  ; 
everything  has  been  done  to  terrorize  him,  to  keep 
him  from  the  polls.  In  some  cases  he  has  stayed 
away  ;  in  others  he  has  gone  straightforward  in 
the  face  of  the  bullets  of  the  enemy  and  has  been 
shot  down.  Hundreds  of  the  men  of  our  race 


9 


have  laid  their  lives  down  on  Southern  soil  in  vin¬ 
dication  of  their  rights  as  American  citizens. 
And  shall  we  be  told,  and  by  black  men,  too,  that 
the  sacred  cause  for  which  they  poured  out  their 
life’s  blood  is  to  be  relinquished,  that  the  white 
ruffians  who  shot  them  down  were  justified,  that 
in  view  of  all  the  circumstances  it  was  just  what 
was  to  have  been  expected,  and  therefore  that  virt¬ 
ually  we  have  no  reasonable  ground  of  complaint? 
Away  with  such  treasonable  utterances — treason  to 
God,  treason  to  man,  treason  to  free  institutions, 
treason  to  the  spirit  of  an  enlightened  and  Chris¬ 
tian  sentiment.  The  Negro  is*  an  American  citi¬ 
zen,  and  he  never  will  be  eliminated  as  a  political 
factor  with  his  consent.  He  has  been  terrorized 
and  kept  from  the  polls  by  bloody  ruffians  ;  but  he 
has  never  felt  that  it  was  right  ;  has  never  acqui¬ 
esced  in  it,  and  never  will.  As  long  as  he  lives, 
as  long  as  there  is  one  manly,  self-respecting 
Negro  in  this  country,  the  agitation  will  go  on, 

will  never  cease  until  right  is  triumphant.  It  is 

% 

one  thing  to  compel  the  Negro  by  force  to  stay 
away  from  the  polls  ;  it  is  a  very  different  thing 
for  the  Negro,  himself  freely,  of  his  own  accord, 
to  relinquish  his  political  rights.  The  one  he  may 
be  constrained  to  do  :  the  other  he  will  not  do. 

Another  discouraging  circumstance  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact,  that  the  white  people  of  the 
North,  to  a  very  large  extent,  are  either  indiffer¬ 
ent  to  these  wrongs  or  are  in  sympathy  with  them. 


10  • 


Many  of  those  who  were  once  onr  best  friends, 
who  stood  by  us  during  the  great  struggle  for  free¬ 
dom,  before  and  immediately  after  the  war,  are 
now  on  the  other  side.  The  Negro-hating  spirit  of 
the  South  has  diffused  itself  all  over  the  North. 
Even  the  children  of  the  old  abolitionists  have 
been  won  over  to  a  large  extent,  and  are  now  found 
among  our  detractors,  and  the  apologists  for  South¬ 
ern  outrages.  Everywhere  under  this  baleful 
Southern  influence,  there  is  a  growing  contempt 
for  the  Negro,  and  a  growing  disposition  to  regard 
him  as  an  alien,  to  make  him  feel  that  he  is  not 
wanted.  Even  in  qur  institutions  of  learning,  the 
children  of  white  professors,  who  earn  their  living 
by  teaching  colored  pupils,  are  sometimes  found 
avoiding  him  and  looking  contemptuously  upon 
him. 

Another  discouragingcircumstance  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  press  of  the  country  is  against 
us,  with  a  few  honorable  exceptions.  And  when 
we  remember  what  the  power  of  the  press  is,  we 
can  see  just  what  that  means,  how  much  more 
difficult  it  becomes  for  us  to  make  any  headway,  or 
to  create  a  favorable  impression.  The  good  that 
the  Negro  does  as  a  general  thing  is  passed  over  in 
silence,  or  is  but  slightly  noticed,  or  when  noticed 
is  pushed  off  in  some  obscure  corner  where  it  will 
not  be  likely  to  attract  attention,  while  the  evil 
that  he  does,  or  is  supposed  to  do — the  evil  that  is 
laid  to  his  charge,  often  without  any  foundation  in 


fact,  often  resting  upon  a  bare  suspicion — is  given 
the  most  prominent  place,  and  set  forth  in  glaring 
head  lines,  the  whole  purpose  being  to  create  a 
sentiment  against  him,  to  render  him  contempt¬ 
ible  in  the  eyes  of  the  country.  Its  attitude  to¬ 
wards  the  Negro  is  that  of  the  Pharisee  to  the 
publican,  in  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the 
publican.  It  is  all  the  time  saying,  See  how  supe¬ 
rior  we  white  people  are,  and  how  mean  and  des¬ 
picable  these  Negroes  are.  And  it  does  it,  I  say, 
for  the  purpose  of  discrediting  the  Negro.  There 
is  no  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  press,  to  give 
the  Negro  a  hearing,  or  to  mete  out  justice  to  him. 
Even  when  he  comes  forward  in  his  own  defense, 
it  is  with  difficulty  that  he  can  get  a  hearing. 
The  simple  fact  is,  the  Negro  is  unpopular,  and 
as  the  press  lives  by  pandering  to  popular  taste, 
it  seeks  to  dress  the  Negro  up  in  a  way  that  will 
meet  this  demand,  or  that  will  harmonize  with 
this  sentiment.  So  that  as  long  as  public  senti¬ 
ment  is  what  it  is,  we  may  expect  to  be  misrepre¬ 
sented  and  villified  in  the  public  journals.  It  is  a 
popular  thing  to  be  down  on  the  Negro,  and  the 
press  is  bound  to  be  on  the  popular  side — the  relig¬ 
ious  press  as  well  as  the  secular  press  :  for  the 
Negro  fares  as  badly  at  the  hands  of  the  one  as  the 
other. 

Another  discouraging  circumstance  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  the  pulpits  of  the  land  are 
silent  on  these  great  wrongs.  There  are  nearly  a 


12 


hundred  thousand  white  ministers  in  this  coun¬ 
try.  According  to  their  own  profession,  they  are 
God’s  representatives:  and  the  function  of  the  min. 
istry,  as  set  forth  in  God’s  Word,  is  to  cry  aloud 
and  spare  not,  is  to  lift  up  a  standard  for  the  peo¬ 
ple.  And  yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  the  rarest 
thing  in  the  world  to  hear  a  word  from  these  pul¬ 
pits  against  the  terrible  crimes-  which  are  being 
perpetrated  in  this  land  against  the  Negro. 
Whether  this  is  the  result  of  cowardice — the  fear 
of  offending  those  to  whom  they  minister,  and 
upon  whom  they  are  dependent  for  their  bread  and 
butter— -or  whether  it  is  because  they  see  nothing 
to  condemn,  think  the  Negro  is  receiving  just 
what  he  deserves  ;  or  whether  it  is  the  result  of  in¬ 
difference,  I  do  not  know.  I  simply  note  the  fact. 
This  much  may  be  said,  however,  they  are  not  silent 
on  other  matters.  We  hear  a  great  deal  from  these 
same  pulpits  about  the  Liquor  Traffic,  about  gamb¬ 
ling,  about  Sabbath  desecration,  about  the  suffering 
Armenians.  When  the  question  of  suppressing 
polygamy  in  Utah  was  up,  they  had  a  great  deal  to 
say.  When  the  question  was  up  about  suppressing 
the  Louisiana  Lottery  they  also  had  a  great  deal  to 
say,  and  many  of  them  rang  out  in  eloquent  appeals 
in  favor  of  wiping  out  that  great  gambling  scheme, 
which  had  done  so  much  to  debauch  the  people. 
And  when  the  question  was  raised  about  opening 
the  Columbian  Exposition  on  the  Sabbath,  what  a 
tremendous  furor  it  created  in  these  pulpits;  the 


i3 


whole  land  echoed  and  reechoed  with  the  soiyid  of 
clerical  voices,  with  the  thunders  which  proceeded 
from  these  lofty  watch-towers  on  the  walls  of  Zion. 
But  when  it  comes  to  Southern  brutality,  to  the 
killing  of  Negroes,  and  the  despoiling  them  of 
their  civil  and  political  rights,  they  are — to  borrow 
an  expression  from  the  prophet  Isaiah — “dumb 
dogs  that  cannot  bark.”  And  they  are  dumb  not 
because  they  are  ignorant  of  the  actual  condition 
of  things.  Ministers  are  men  of  intelligence. 
They  take  the  papers.  They  read  the  news — they 
are  more  careful  to  do  that,  often,  than  they  are  to 
read  their  Bible.  They  are,  as  a  class,  wellinformed; 
they  know  what  is  going  on  about  them.  And  yet, 
as  a  general  thing,  not  a  word  is  ever  uttered  by 
them,  either  in  their  sermons  or  in  their  prayers, 
that  would  lead  any  one  not  acquainted  with  the 
facts,  to  suppose  that  there  was  anything  wrong 
in  the  treatment  which  we  are  receiving  in  this 
country.  Read  the  sermons  that  are  published  in 
the  daily  and  weekly  papers,  and  in  the  homileti- 
cal  magazines,  by  the  great  lights  of  the  pulpit,  and 
very  rarely  will  you  find  any  reference  to  the  sub¬ 
ject,  or  anything  said  that  would  tend  to  create  a 
sentiment  inimical  to  such  outrages.  Some  years 
ago,  the  M.  E.  Church  at  its  General  Conference 
passed  a  series  of  resolutions  condemning  these 
outrages :  and  the  Presbyterian  General  Assem¬ 
bly  did  the  same — some  of  the  churches  haven’t 
done  even  as  much  as  that;  but  we  have  heard 


I4 


« 

nothing'  of  these  resolutions  since.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  the  men  who  advocated  them  and 
voted  for  them  ever  did  anything  from  their  pul¬ 
pits,  or  in  their  respective  spheres  of  influence,  to 
arouse  the  public  conscience  in  reference  to  these 
wrongs,  with  a  view  of  righting  them.  The  fact 
that  these  terrible  outrages  continue  in  the  South, 
that  lawlessness  is  increasing  instead  of  dimin¬ 
ishing,  that  the  spirit  of  bitterness  against  the 
Negro  is  more  pronounced  and  violent  now  than 
ever  before, — notwithstanding  there  are  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  ministers  in  that  land  of  blood 
preaching  Sabbath  after  Sabbath  to  these  very 
people,  who  are  either  directly  guilty  of  these 
crimes,  or  who  by  their  silent  acquiescence  encour¬ 
age  them,  is  proof  positive  that  the  Southern  pul¬ 
pit,  at  least,  has  been  recreant  to  duty,  false  to  the 
God  whom  it  professes  to  represent.  And  the  fact 
that  the  North  looks  on  in  silence,  sees  these 
wrongs  without  vigorously  protesting  against 
them,  is  proof  positive  that  the  Northern  pulpit  is 
equally  recreant  to  duty,  equally  false  to  the  high 
trust  which  has  been  committed  to  it  as  the  mouth¬ 
piece  of  God.  The  power  for  good  of  a  hundred 
thousand  men  of  the  intelligence  and  social  stand¬ 
ing  and  influence  of  these  ministers,  representing 
as  they  do  a  constituency  of  fully  twenty  millions 
of  professing  Christians,  and  an  equally  large  con¬ 
stituency  of  non-professing  and  congregational 
members,  cannot  be  overestimated  when  properly 


t 


15 


exercised.  This  I  feel  has  not  been  done.  If  these 
hundred  thousand  men  had  done  their  part,  had 
taken  the  pains  to  set  clearly  before  the  people 
their  duty  in  this  matter,  as  defined  in  God’s  Word, 
and  as  required  by  the  principle  of  right,  of 
justice,  which  makes  it  obligatory  upon  us  to  ren¬ 
der  to  every  man  his  due,  to  do  by  others  as  we 
would  be  done  by,  and  to  love  our  neighbor  as  our¬ 
selves,  the  prospect  before  both  races  would  be 
very  much  brighter  than  it  is  to-day.'  The  South¬ 
ern  savages  who  have  been  sinking  lower  and 
lower  during  these  years  in  barbarism,  would  by 
this  time  have  become  somewhat  civilized,  and  the 
poor  Negro,  instead  of  being  hunted  down  like  a 
wild  beast,  terrorized  by  a  pack  of  brutes,  would 
be  living  amicably  by  the  side  of  his  white  fellow- 
citizens,  if  not  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  all  of  his 
rights,  with  at  least  a  fair  prospect  of  having 
them  all  recognized.  The  ■  white  pulpits  of  the 
land  are  largely  responsible  for  the  continuance 
of  this  unfortunate  condition  of  affairs.  Their 
silence  as  the  representatives  of  religion,  as  the 
highest  exponents  of  morality,  and  as  a  class  of 
men,  especially  set  apart  for  the  defense  of  the 
faith,  and  for  all  that  that  faith  implies  and  re¬ 
quires  in  the  way  of  righteousness  and  truth,  of 
justice  and  humanity,  is  a  tacit  admission  on  their 
part  that  these  outbreaks  of  lawlessness,  these  in¬ 
sults  and  indignities  that  are  heaped  upon  the 
Negro,  and  because  he  is  a  Negro,  are  right — that 


1 6 


they  see  nothing  in  them  to  condemn,  nothing  in¬ 
consistent  with  the  religion  which  they  profess  : 
or  else,  that  though  they  see  these  things  to  be 
wrong,  they  are  afraid  to  lift  up  their  voices 
against  them.  In  either  case,  whether  their 
silence  is  the  result  of  cowardice,  or  of  blunted 
moral  sensibility,  it  has  operated  equally  against 
us.  This  is  the  charge  I  make  against  the  Anglo- 
American  pulpit  to-day.  Its  silence  has  been  inter¬ 
preted  as  an  approval  of  these  horrible  outrages. 
Bad  men  have  been  encouraged  to  continue  in 
their  acts  of  lawlessness  and  brutality.  As  long 
as  the  pulpits  are  silent  on  these  wrongs,  it  is  in 
vain  to  expect  the  people  to  do  any  better  than 
they  are  doing.  It  would  be  a  good  thing  if  we 
could  have  a  day  of  special  prayer  for  the  pulpits 
of  our  land,  North  as  well  as  South ;  that  God 
would  put  into  them  *a  little  more  backbone  and 
strength  of  character  and  conscientiousness  ;  that 
he  would  fill  them  with  men  who  love  righteous¬ 
ness  and  hate  iniquity;  men  who  are  not  afraid  to 
do  their  duty,  or  to  suffer,  if  need  be,  in  the  cause 
of  truth  and  justice.  A  cowardly  ministry  is  a 
curse  to  any  nation,  and  always  makes  it  harder, 
more  difficult,  for  the  oppressed  to  overcome  op¬ 
pression.  If  therefore,  as  a  people  we  have  any 
power  with  God,  there  ought  to  be  a  special  effort 
made  to  bring  that  power  to  bear  upon  the  weak¬ 
ness  and  cowardice  of  the  American  pulpit.  You 
remember  how  it  was  with  Peter.  He  was  afraid 


i7 


even  to  acknowledge  that  he  knewj  esus — afraid  lest 
some  evil  should  befall  him,  lest  he  should  be  perse¬ 
cuted,  thrown  in  prison,  or  put  to  death.  But  after 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  when  the  spirit  like  a  rushing 
mighty  wind  came  upon  him,  all  fear  vanished. 
He  was  not  afraid  to  face  the  chief  priests  and  the 
elders,  the  scribes  and  the  Pharisees,  and  all  the 
allied  forces  of  the  enemy.  He  stood  before  them 
undaunted,  and  met  their  threats  of  violence  with 
the  declaration,  “  We  ought  to  obey  God  rather 
than  man,  We  will  obey  him,  come  what  will.” 
And  this  is  the  spirit  we  need  to-day  in  the 
American  pulpit.  We  need  a  living  ministry — a 
ministry  endued  with  power  from  on  high,  bap¬ 
tized  with  the  Holy  Ghost — a  ministry  that  knows 
no  fear,  but  the  fear  of  God.  With  such  a  min¬ 
istry,  with  such  men  filling  the  pulpits  of  our 
land,  in  a  decade  there  would  be  a  revolution  in 
public  sentiment.  This  terrible  floodtide  of  in¬ 
iquity,  this  deluge  of  crime,  of  violence,  of  law¬ 
lessness  against  the  Negro  would  be  arrested. 
The  trouble  is,  even  in  the  churches  over  which 
these  ministers  preside,  which  should  be  holy 
ground,  where  no  man  should  be  known  by  the 
color  of  his  skin,  prejudice  is  often  the  strongest. 
And  for  this,  the  ministry  is  in  a  large  measure 
responsible.  It  is  due,  or  at  least,  its  continuence 
is  due,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  to  ministerial  un¬ 
faithfulness.  Let  us  pray  earnestly  therefore, 
that  this  source  of  power — for  the  ministry  is  a 


source  of  power,  and  of  great  power— may  be 
purified  and  quickened,  and  be  made  to  do  the 
work  which  God  intended  it  to  do,  in  leading, 
directing,  and  moulding  public  sentiment  in  the 
interest  of  truth,  justice  and  humanity. 

Joseph  Parker,  the  great  London  preacher,,  in  his 

People’s  Bible,  which  is  designed  to  be  a  popular 

« 

exposition  of  God’s  Word,  speaks  with  great  clear¬ 
ness  of  the  true  function  of  the  ministry  in  regard 
to  wrongs  of  every  description,  and  denounces  in 
the  strongest  terms  the  cowardly,  time-serving 
preacher.  “Moses,  he  says,  “saw  that  the  con¬ 
ditions  of  life  had  a  moral  basis  .;,  in  every  quarrel, 
as  between  right  and  wrong,  he  had  a  share,  be¬ 
cause  every,  honorable-minded  man  is  a  trustee  of 
social  justice  and  common  fair  play.  We  have 
nothing  to  do  with. the  petty  quarrels  which  fret 
society,  but  we  certainly  have  to  do  with  every 
controversy,  social,:  imperial,  or  international, 
Which  violates  human  right,  and  impairs  the  claim 
of  Divine  honor.  We  must  all  fight  for  the  right  : 
we  feel  safer  by  so  much  as  we  know  that  there 
are  amongst  us  men  who  will  not  be. silent  in  the 
presence  of  wrong,  and  will  lift  up  a  testimony  in 
the  name  of  righteousness,  though  there  be  none 
to  cheer  them  with  one.  word  of  encouragement.” 
Again  he  says,  “  the  trumpets  were  to  be  sounded 
by  the  priests.  The  priests  are  not  likely  to  sound 
many  trumpets  to-day..  Ministers,  have  been 
snubbed  and  silenced  into  an  awful  acquiescence 


with  the  stronger  party.  The  pulpit  should  be  a 
tower  of  strength  to  everv  weak  cause.  Women 
should  hasten  to  the  , church,  saying—  Our  cause 
will  be  upheld  there.,  Homeless  little  chil¬ 
dren  should  speed  to  the  sanctuary,  saying,  We 
will  be  welcomed  there.  Slaves  running  away 
should  open  the  church  door  with  certainty  of 
hospitality,  saying,  The  man  who  stands  up  in 
that  tower  will  forbid  the  tyrant  to  reclaim  me,  or 
the  oppressor  to  smite  me  with  one  blow.  It  was 
God’s  ordination  that  the  trumpet  should  be 
sounded  by  the  priests — interpreting  that  name 
properly,  by  the  teachers  of  religion,  by  the  man 
of  prayer,  by  the  preachers  of  great  and 
Solemn  doctrines  ;  they  are  to  sound  the  trumpet, 
whether  it  be  a  call  to  festival  or  to  battle. 
We  dare  not  do  so  now,  because  now  we  have 
house-rent  to  pay,  and  firing  to  find,  and  children 
to  educate,  and  customs  to  obey.  Were  we  clothed 
in  sackcloth,  or  with  camel’s  hair,  and  could,  we 
find  food  enough  in  the  wilderness,  were  the 
locust  and  the  honey  sufficient  for  our  natural  appe¬ 
tites,  wo  might: beard  many  a  tyrant,  and  decline 
many  an  invitation,  and  repel  many  an  imperti¬ 
nent  censor:  but  we  must  consider  our  ways,  and 
balance  our  sentences,  and  remember  that  we  are 
speaking  in  the  ears  of  various  representatives  of 
public  opinion  and  individual  conviction.  The 
pulpit  has  gone  down.  It  has  kept  its  form  and 
lost  its  power  ;  its  voice  is  a  mumbling  tone,  not  a 


20 


great  trumpet  blast  that  creates  a  space  for  it¬ 
self,  and  is  heard  above  the  hurtling  storm  and 
the  rush  of  hasteful  and  selfish  merchandise. 
Were  ministers  to  become  the  trumpeters  of 
society  again,  what  an  awakening  there  would  be 
in  the  nation.  Were  every  Sabbath  day  to  be  de¬ 
voted  to  the  tearing  down  of  some  monster  evil — 
were  the  sanctuary  dedicated  to  the  denunciation, — 
not  of  the  vulgar  crimes  which  everybody  con¬ 
demns,  but  the  subtle  and  unnamed  crimes  which 
everybody  practices, — the  blast  of  the  trumpet 
would  tear  the  temple  walls  in  twain.  We  live  in 
milder  times— we  are  milder  people  :  we  wish  for 
restfulness.  The  priests  wish  to  have  it  so  also — * 
like  priest,  like  people.  The  man  who  comes  with 
a  trumpet  of  festival  will  be  welcomed;  the  man 
who  sounds  an  alarm  will  be  run  away  from  by 
dyspeptic  hearers,  by  bilious  supporters,  and  by 
men  who  wish  to  be  let  alone.” 

And  still  again,  he  says,  “  The  man  who  sells  his 
principles,  who  keeps  quiet  in  critical  times,  lest 
he  should  bring  himself  into  difficulty,  or  sub¬ 
ject  his  business  to  loss— it  shall  be  more  tolera¬ 
ble  for  the  heathen  man  in  the  day  of  judgment 
than  for  that  Christian  traitor.  Every  day  we  are 
selling  Christ,  every  day  we  are  crucifying  the 
Son  of  God  afresh,  and  putting  him  to  open  shame; 
and  yet  at  a  missionary  meeting  how  some  men 
gather  themselves  together  and  chuckle  with  pious 
hypocrisy  over  the  poor  deluded  idolator  who  part- 


21 


ed  with  his  stone  God  for  gold.  Men  do  not  think 
of  these  things.  When  you  smothered  your  con¬ 
victions,  you  sold  your  God.  When,  instead  of 
standing  square  up,  and  saying,  I  will  not,  that 
you  might  save  your  situation,  or  your  family  from 
starvation,  you  bartered  your  God  for  gold.  I  can¬ 
not  sit  quietly  and  hear  the  heathen  laughed  at 
because  they  take  off  their  little  rosaries  and  sell 
them  for  money.  They  know  no  better.  That  very 
parting  with  the  rosary  may  be  a  step  in  the  up¬ 
ward  direction,  when  the  whole  solution  is  before 
us.  But  as  for  us,  to  be  dumb  in  the  presence  of 
evil,  to  turn  away  lest  we  should  bring  ourselves 
into  scrapes  and  difficulties  because  of  standing  up 
for  the  oppressed,— for  us  to  smooth  down  the  ac* 
cusation  of  Christianity  by  saying  that  the  church 
we  go  to  is  the  most  respectable  in  the  neighbor* 
hood, — that  is  a  lying  which  the  blood  of  Christ 
itself  may  hardly  be  able  to  expunge.”  And  this  is 
the  gospel, — the  gospel  of  uncompromising  fidelity 
to  the  right, — regardless  of  consequences,  that  is 
most  needed  in  the  American  pulpit  to-day. 

But  this  is  not  the  saddest  and  most  discouraging 
aspect  of  the  problem,  viewed  in  the  light  of  the 
attitude  of  the  pulpit  toward  it.  Its  silence  is  bad 
enough,  but  when  it  is  found,  as  it  is  at  times, 
breaking  that  silence,  only  to  apologize  for  and  to 
condone  these  outrages,  it  makes  the  burden  which 
this  poor  race  has  to  bear  all  the  harder,  and  in¬ 
creases  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  rightful 


22 


solution  of  this  problem.  Some  years  ago,  you 
will  remember,  no  less  a  man  than  Bishop  Fitz¬ 
gerald  of  the  Southern  Methodist  Church,  came 
forward  as  an  apologist  for  Southern  barbarism. 
And  now  in  the  face  of  the  awful,  the  unspeak¬ 
able  crimes  that  were  committed  at  Wilmington, 
N.  C.,  where  Negroes  were  terrorized,  driven  from 
their  homes,  shot  down,  murdered,  their  property 

S;  i  *  ,  Is  ,  .  **  # 

destroyed  ;  where  the  government  was  forcibly 
wrested  from  the  hands  of  the  lawfully  constitu- 
ted  authority  by  a  band  of  lawless  murderers  and 


ruffians,  it  is  a  representative  of  the  pulpit,  in  the 

.  .  '  ...  .  ..  .  c 

person  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Peyton  H.  Hoge,  who 
comes  forward  as  the  apologist.  The  Sunday  after 
these  bloody  murders  were  committed,  after  this 
carnival  of  death;  after  these  white  fiends  had 
been  turned  loose  upon  the  community,  and  had 
trampled  under  their  feet,  the  ballot,  free  speech, 
fhe  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi¬ 


ness — every  interest  that  was  sacred  to  man — when 
we  had  a  right  to  expect  every  pulpit,  not  only  in 
that  city  but  throughout  the  land,  to  thunder 
and  lighten  against  the  hideous  wrong,  this  man 

‘  r  •  i 

stood  up  in  the  sacred  desk,  .on  the  Lord’s  da}’,  and 
commended  the  white  people  for  “their  gallant 
conduct  in  redeeming  the  city  for  civilization,  law; 
order,  decency  and  respectability;”  and  congrat- 

r  *  r  « 

ulated  them  upon  the  fact  that  “  their  homes  re^ 
mamed  in  peace,  and  their  wives  and  daughters 
were  free  from  insult.”1  He  also  justified  the  de- 


struction  of  the  Negro  Daily  Record  Office,  “as, a 


'**  .  .  S* 

good  name  of  the  wives  and.  daughters  of  white 
men.”  ■  ... 

It  is  just  such  whited  sepulchres,  such  hypo¬ 
crites  in  the  pulpit,  that  have  always  stood  in  the 
way  of  progress,  and  that  have  brought  the  relig¬ 
ion  of  Christ  into  contempt.  It  was  just  such  hypo¬ 
crites  which  Jesus  had  in  mind  when  he  uttered 
those  awful  words  of  denunciation  in  the  twenty- 
third  chapter  of  Matthew: — “  Woe  unto  you,  scribes 
and  Pharisees,  hypocrites:  for  ye  shut  up  the  king¬ 
dom  of  heaven  against  men:  for  ye  neither  go  in 
yourselves,  neither  suffer  ye  them  that  are  enter¬ 
ing  to  go  in.  Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Phari¬ 
sees,  hypocrites:  for  ye  compass  sea  and  land  to 
make  one  proselyte,  and  when  he  is  made,  ye  make 
him  twofold  more  the  child  of  hell  than  your¬ 
selves.  Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites:  for  ye  pay  tithe  of  mint  and  anise  and 
cummin,  and  have  omitted  the  weightier  matters 
of  the  law, — judgment,  mercy,  and  faith:  these 
ought  ye  to  have  done  and  not  to  leave  the  other 
undone.  Ye  blind  guides,  which  strain  out  the 
gnat,  and  swallow  the  camel.  Fill  ye  up  the  meas¬ 
ure  of  your  fathers.  Ye  serpents,  ye  generation 
of  vipers,  how  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of 
hell  ?”  “  The  damnation  of  hell/’  are  the  words  of 

Jesus  himself:  and  if  this  damnation  is  reserved 
for  any  one,  or  any  class  of  men,  it  certainly  is  for 


24 


men  of  this  stripe, — men  who  dare  to  stand  up  in 
the  pulpit,  and  in  the  sacred  name  of  the  holy  re¬ 
ligion  of  Jesus,  commend  such  brutality,  such  in¬ 
human  conduct,  such  utter  lawlessness. 

But  here  I  must  stop.  I  shall  hope  on  next 
Sabbath  to  finish  what  I  have  to  say.  This  is  the 
time  for  every  pulpit  to  speak  out,  and  to  speak  in 
no  uncertain  tone;  the  time  when  as  a  people  we 
should  get  closer  together,  and  understand  each 
other,  and  prepare  for  the  future.  It  is  no  time 
for  cowards,  and  sycophants,  and  time-servers, 
but  for  men,  who  know  what  their  rights  are,  and 
who  are  willing,  if  need  be,  to  die  in  their 
defence. 


i 


i 


I 


germon  JJ. 

Sources  from  which  no  help  may  be  expected,— the 
general  government,  political  parties,  etc. 


“Wait  on  the  Lord;  be  of  good  courage,  and  He  shall 
strengthen  thine  heart.” — Psalm  27:14. 

THE  history  of  our  people  in  this  country  has 
been  a  sad  one.  For  nearly  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years,  from  1619  to  1863,  from  the  landing  of 
the  first  cargo  of  slaves  at  Jamestown  to  the  issu¬ 
ing  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  and  the  sur¬ 
render  at  Appomattox,  we  were  subject  to  a  most 
cruel  and  oppressive  bondage.  The  history  of 
those  days  can  never  be  fully  written.  We  get  a 
little  glimpse  into  them  through  such  works  as 
“  Uncle  Tom’s  Cabin,”  “  Dred,”  “  The  Key  to  Uncle 
Tom’s  Cabin,”  Thousand  and  One  Witnesses,” 
by  Theodore  D.  Weld;  and  through  the  files  of  such 
papers  as  the  Liberator,  the  Anti-slavery  Standard, 
The  North  Star,  and  from  the  sad  stories  which 
many  of  us  have  heard  from  the  lips  of  those  who 
were  the  victims  of  the  slave  power.  But  after 
every  syllable  has  been  read  of  all  that  has  been 
written  in  books  and  papers  and  magazines,  on  the 
sorrows  and  sufferings  of  that  period,  the  impres- 


2& 

sion  we  get  falls  far  short  of  the  reality.  God 
only  knows  it  in  its  entirety,  and  is  alone  able  to 
fully  appreciate  and  take  in  all  the  heartaches 
and  sorrows  and  sufferings,  and  sad  experiences 
that  entered  into  the  history  of  those  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years. 

With  the  close  of  the  war,  ended  this  first  sad 
chapter  in  our  history.  For  the  time  being  the 
past  was  forgotten  in  the  rejoicings  of  freedom. 
Never  before  in  the  history  of  this  country  were 
there  such  widespread  expressions  of  joy  as  came 
with  the  death  of  slavery  and  the  liberation  of 
the  slaves.  No  people  ever  before  in  the  history 
of  the  world  showed  a  keener  appreciation  of  the 
gift  of  freedom.  The  whole  land  was  vocal  with 
music.  The  day  of  jubilee  had  come,  not  only  for 
the  black  man,  but  for  all  lovers  of  freedom  the 
land  over.  Who  can  ever  forget  those  days,  and 
the  scenes  of  rejoicing  which  took  place  all  over 
the  North  and  South.  The  sighs  and  tears  and 
groans  of  the  slave  were  no  lopger  heard.  All 
was  joy,  all  was  gladness.  It  seemed,  indeed,  as 
if  our  troubles  were  all  over. 

Thus  began  the  second  chapter  in  our  history  in 
this  country.  First  came  freedom,  and  then,  citi¬ 
zenship;  and  last  of  all  the  ballot.  Then  began 
the  period  of  reconstruction,  when  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  country  the  Negro  was 
felt  as  a  political  factor.  In  nearly  all  of  the  old 
slave  states,  under  Northern  white  leaders,  his 


27 


power  was  felt.  He  was  found  in  state  legisla¬ 
tures,  and  in  other  high  and  responsible  positions, 
and  even  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  arid 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Everything 
seemed  propitious, — the  Negro  was  on  the  crest  of 
the  wave,  a  new  era  of  prosperity  seemed  really  to 
have  set  in.  But  during  the  Hayes  Administra¬ 
tion  the  scene  rapidly  changed:  the  Republican 
party  in  the  South,  with  the  Negro  as  its  main 
support,  was  deserted  by  the  national  govern¬ 
ment, — the  troops  were  withdrawn.  And  with 
their  removal  began  a  reign  of  terror,  which  has 
been  one  of  the  foulest  blots  upon  our  civilization. 
The  old  slave  holding  element  reasserted  itself, 
and  by  Ku-Klux  Klans,  and  other  murderous  organ¬ 
izations,  the  Negro  was  hurled  from  political 
power,  where  he  has  remained  ever  since,  and 
where  so  far  as  I  can  see,  he  is  likely  to  remain 
for  a  long  time  to  come. 

With  the  end  of  Republicanism  in  the  South, 
began  the  third  chapter  in  our  history, — a  chap¬ 
ter  which  has  been  fraught  with  evils  as  great,  and 
sufferings  as  intense  as  the  first,  if  not  greater. 
The  elective  franchise,  with  which  we  were  clothed 
as  a  means  of  protecting  ourselves,  and  which 
seemed  at  the  time,  one  of  the  greatest  of  boons, 
has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  entailed  upon  us  an  in¬ 
heritance  of  suffering  before  which  we  stand  ap¬ 
palled,  especially  in  view  of  the  recent  bloody 
acts  of  lawlessness  in  North  and  South  Carolina. 


When  the  Negro  was  caught  by  slave-hunters  and 
torn  from  his  home  in  Africa,  and  transported  to 
this  land,  to  become  a  mere  beast  of  burden,  a 
thing  to  be  bought  and  sold,  to  be  kicked  and  cuffed 
about  at  the  will  of  another,  it  was  easy  enough  to 
see  what  the  outcome  would  be.  The  record  of 
those  dreadful  years  of  enforced  ignorance  and 
suffering  was  just  what  was  toibe  expected.  But 
when  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  was  passed,  con¬ 
ferring  upon  him  the  right  to  vote,  who  would 
have  thought,  that  in  virtue  of  that  power,  there 
was  yet  before  him  such  a  period  of  suffering  as 
that  through  which  he  has  been  passing  for  the 
last  two  decades,  and  through  which  he  is  still 
passing?  Who  would  have  thought,  that  in  virtue 
of  that  power,  which  lay  at  the  very  foundation  of 
republican  institutions,  that  hundreds  and  thou¬ 
sands  would  be  shot  down,  and  others  driven  from 
their  homes,  their  property  destroyed,  and  their 
most  sacred  rights  as  men  and  citizens,  outraged? 
And  yet,  such  has  been  the  fact.  During  the 
short  period  of  freedom  since  the  passage  of  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment,  it  has  been  estimated  that 
more  Negroes  have  been  murdered,  shot  down  like 
dogs,  than  during  the  whole  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  slavery.  Read  the  awful  records  of  the 
Ku-Klux  investigations:  read  the  heart-sickening 
reports  that  come  to  us  almost  every  day  from  the 
South  of  the  brutal  lynchings  and  other  atrocities 
that  are  constantly  occuring,  if  you  would  under- 


29 


stand  what  these  sufferings  are.  And  they  are  the 
result,  or  very  largely  the  result  of  political  hatred. 
It  is  because  the  Negro  dares  to  exercise  his  right 
as  an  American  citizen,  because  he  is  unwilling  to 
become  a  political  nonentity,  or  a  mere  tool  in  the 
hands  of  the  Southern  whites.  The  feeling  is, — 
either  he  must  be  controlled,  must  be  willing  to  do 
what  he  is  directed  to  do  by  his  self-appointed 
white  masters,  or  else  he  must  not  be  permitted  to 
vote  at  all.  Any  exhibition  of  manhood,  of  inde¬ 
pendence,  on  his  part  is  resented,  is  looked  upon 
as  an  impertinence.  As  he  grows  in  intelligence, 
in  wealth,  in  self-respect, — as  he  becomes  more 
self-assertive, — as  the  consciousness  of  what  be¬ 
longs  to  him,  and  the  disposition  to  claim  his  right, 
develops,  the  greater  is  the  disposition  to  crush 
him.  This  feeling  is  especially  strong  in  the 
South,  but  is  also  beginning  to  manifest  itself  all 
over  the  country.  The  aspiring  Negro,  the  Negro 
who  comes  forward  and  says,  I  want  an  equal 
chance  in  the  race  of  life,  who  says,  I  am  a  man, 
and  you  must  treat  me  as  a  man,  is  the  unpopular 
Negro,  the  Negro  that  nine  white  men  out  of 
every  ten  want  to  see  put  down.  With  this  fact 
staring  us  in  the  face,  and  with  the  facts,  referred 
to  in  my  sermon  on  last  Sabbath, — the  increasing 
spirit  of  lawlessness  in  the  South,  the  growing  un¬ 
friendliness  of  Northern  whites,  the  hostile  atti¬ 
tude  of  the  press,  and  the  silence  and  cowardice 
of  the  pulpit, — the  way  certainly  looks  pretty  dark. 


3° 


and  forces  upon  every  thoughtful  Negro  the 
question,  What  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  all  this  ? 
Whatois  to  be  the  end  ?  Are  things  to  go  on  from 
bad  to  worse,  or  is  there  to  be  a  turn  in  the  tide  ? 
I,  for  one,  believe  there  is  to  be  a  change  for  the 
better.  In  the  midst  of  the  gathering  darkness,  I 
see  indications  which  point  to  a  brighter  future. 
Every  cloud  has  a  silver  lining.  The  darkest  hour 
is  just  before  the  day.  There  is  a  silver  lining  to 
this  heavy  black  cloud  that  hangs  over  us  to-day. 
This  night  of  murder,  of  lawlessness,  of  outraged 
decency,  of  inhumanity,  will  not  always  last. 
The  silence  of  the  pulpit,  the  hostility  of  the 
press,  the  unfriendliness  of  Northern  whites  can¬ 
not  continue;  conscience  will  one  day  get  the  vic¬ 
tory,  the  Right  will  prevail,  will  rise  up  in  its 
might  and  smite  down  the  oppressor. 

“  Some  of  these  days  all  the  skies  will  be  brighter. 

Some  of  these  days  all  the  burdens  be  lighter. 

Hearts  will  be  happier,  souls  will  be  whiter, 

Some  of  these  days. 

Some  of  these  days,  in  the  deserts  uprising, 

Fountains  shall  flash  while  the  joybells  are  ringing, 

And  the  world,  with  its  sweetest  of  birds,  shall  go  singing, 
Some  of  these  days. 

Some  of  these  days:  Let  us  bear  with  our  sorrow, 

Faith  in  the  future, — its  light  we  may  borrow, 

There  will  be  joy  in  the  golden  to-morrow, — 

Some  of  these  days. 


31 


That  is  my  faith;  I  am  no  pessimist  on  this 
Negro  problem.  Terrible  as  the  facts  are,  cruel 
and  bitter  as  is  this  race  prejudice,  and  insur¬ 
mountable,  almost,  as  are  the  obstacles  which  it 
sets  up  in  our  pathway,  I  see  a  light  ahead,  I  am 
hopeful,  I  look  forward  to  better  times.  And  I 
want  to  tell  you  this  morning  what  the  ground  of 
this  hope  is. 

Before  doing  so,  however,  I  may  be  permitted  to 
say  in  passing,  I  do  not  think  there  is  much 
ground  for  hope  through  national  interposition. 
Whether  the  general  government  has  power  or  not, 
the  simple  fact  is,  it  lacks  the  disposition.  I  refer 
to  no  particular  administration,  but  to  the  general 
government  as  such.  It  doesn’t  seem  to  make  any 
difference  who  is  at  the  head  of  affairs,  the  same 
indisposition  is  found,  the  same  timidity  is  mani¬ 
fested,  the  same  let-alone  policy  is  pursued.  I  do 
not  at  this  point  raise  the  question  as  to  whether 
that  is  a  right  or  wrong  policy.  I  am  simply  not¬ 
ing  the  fact,  and  saying,  that  through  that  source, 
there  is  little  or  no  ground  of  hope,  so  far  as  I  can 
see.  And  yet,  I  have  sometimes  felt  that  if  we 
could  have  had  in  the  presidential  chair  a  succes¬ 
sion  of  men  like  Thaddeus  Stevens  of  Pennsyl¬ 
vania, — that  stern  old  commoner,  that  man  of  iron 
will,  and  of  deep  heartfelt  sympathy  for  the  op¬ 
pressed,  the  spirit  of  lawlessness  in  the  South 
would  long  since  have  been  stamped  out.  He 
would  have  found  a  way,  just  as  President  Cleve- 


land  found  a  way  to  suppress  the  labor  riots  in 
Chicago.  Where  there  is  a  will,  there  is  a  way. 
The  old  pro-slavery  power  never  found  any  diffi¬ 
culty  in  finding  in  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the 
land  a  warrant  for  whatever  it  wanted  to  do:  why 
should  we  find  any  difficulty  in  finding  a  warrant 
in  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  land  for  sup¬ 
pressing  mob  violence  and  revolution,  for  rooting 
out  the  band  of  murderers  and  traitors  that  infest 
the  Southern  section  of  our  country?  If  the  ene¬ 
mies  of  freedom  found  a  *way  to  do  what  they 
wanted,  why  should  we  find  any  difficulty  in  pro¬ 
tecting  innocent  and  loyal  black  citizens  of  the 
Republic,  who  have  been  true  to  the  nation  in 
every  crisis  of  its  history,  and  who  to-day  are  as 
true  and  as  patriotic  as  any  other  class  of  citizens? 
Why,  I  ask,  should  there  be  any  difficulty? 

Nor  do  I  see  any  hope  through  the  action  of 
either  of  the  great  political  parties.  We  have 
nothing  to  hope  from  the  Democratic  party,  nei¬ 
ther  have  we  anything  to  hope  for  from  the  Re¬ 
publican  Party.  Neither  party  is  going  to  concern 
itself  about  the  rights  of  the  Negro,  except 
so  far  as  it  can  use  him.  Neither  party  feels  any 
interest  in  him:  both  would  be  glad  to  get  rid  of 
him.  In  the  South,  the  Democratic  party  would 
eliminate  him  entirely,  and  in  the  North,  it  is  only 
where  he  holds  the  balance  of  power,  that  any  at¬ 
tention  is  ever  paid  to  him.  I  am  not  speaking 
for  or  against  either  party;  I  am  simply  stating  a 


33 


fact,  which  you  know,  and  which  I  know,  and 
which  every  man,  white  or  black,  knows  to  be  true. 
The  Democratic  party  has  always  stood  in  the  way 
of  the  Negro’s  advancement:  that  is  its  record. 
And  the  Republican  party, — the  time  was  when 
it  stood  squarely  on  the  platform  of  human  rights, 
when  its  great  strong  arm  was  stretched  out  in 
protection  of  the  Negro,  when  it  felt  as  Lowell  has 
so  nobly  expressed  it, — 

“We  owe  allegiance  to  the  State;  but 
deeper,  truer,  more, 

To  the  sympathies  that  God  hath  set 
within  our  spirit’s  core; 

Our  country  claims  our  fealty;  we  grant 
it  so,  but  then 

Before  Man  made  us  citizens,  great 
Nature  made  us  men. 

“  He’s  true  to  God  who’s  true  to  man  ; 

wherever  wrong  is  done, 

To  the  humblest  and  the  weakest,  ’neath 
the  all-beholding  sun, 

That  wrong  is  also  done  to  us ;  and  they 
are  slaves  most  base, 

Whose  love  of  right  is  for  themselves, 
and  not  for  all  their  race. 

That  is  where  the  Republican  party  once  stood, 
when  it  was  dominated  by  the  influence  of  such 
men  as  Sumner  and  Wilson,  Chase  and  Giddings, 
Morton  and  Stevens,  and  a  host  of  other  cham¬ 
pions  of  freedom;  but  it  is  not  so  now.  It  is  so 
absorbed  with  matters  of  the  tariff  and  the  cur- 


t 


34 


rency,  that  it  doesn’t  seem  to  hear  any  longer  the 
cries  of  the  oppressed  millions  of  Negroes,,  for  pro¬ 
tection  against  lawlessness  and  brutality,  I  do 
not  say  this,  with  a  view  of  inducing  a  single  rep¬ 
resentative  of  our  race  to  abandon  the  grand  old 
party:  we  owe  it  much,  all  that  we  have,— freedom, 
citizenship,  the  ballot,  came  to  us  through  it.  We 
never  can  forget  it:  we  never  will  forget  it.  No, 
And  it  is  because  of  the  love  I  bear  it,  and  of 
what  it  has  been,  that  it  grieves  me  to  find  it  so 
lukewarm  and  indifferent  now  to  the  interests 
which  once  stirred  it  so  profoundly. 

Nor  is  there,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  much  ground  of 
hope  from  an  appeal  to  force.  The  odds  are 
against  us.  Even  in  the  South,  the  whites  out- 
number  are  superior  to  us  in  intelligence,  and 
in  resources.  It  is  also  morally  certain,  that  if 
there  should  be  an  uprising  of  the  blacks,  there 
would  not  only  be  a  united  South,  but  also  a 
united  North,  to  crush  it  out;  and  the  general 
government,  which  has  never  been  able  to  find  a 
warrant  in  the  Constitution  and  laws,  and  a  suf¬ 
ficient  pretext  for  interfering  to  put  down  the 
uprising  of  the  whites  against  the  blacks,  would 
very  soon  be  en  route  for  the  scene  of  action. 
The  whole  army  and  navy,  if  it  were  necessary, 
would  be  employed  to  crush  out  a  Negro  uprising. 

And  yet,  while  this  may  be  true,  I  am  also  re¬ 
minded  of  the  fact,  that  in  the  dreadful  condition 
of  things  which  existed  in  France  for  centuries, 


4 


35 


where  the  lower  and  middle  classes  were  op¬ 
pressed,  ground  down  under  the  heel  of  the  nobility, 
it  was  not  unti?  that  awful  tragedy,  called  the 
French  Revolution,  burst  upon  the  world,  that  a 
change  for  the  better  began.  You  remember  what 
Lowell  says  in  his  immortal  “Ode  to  France;” 

4‘  They  trampled  Peace  beneath  their  savage  feet. 

And  by  her  golden  tresses  drew 
Mercy  along  the  pavement  of  the  street. 

O  Freedom:  Freedom:  is  thy  morning  dew 
So  gory  red  ?  Alas,  thy  light  had  ne’er 
Shone  in  upon  the  chaos  of  their  lair. 

They  reared  to  thee  such  symbols  as  they  knew, 

And  worshipped  it  with  flame  and  blood, 

A  vengeance,  axe  in  hand,  that  stood 
Holding  a  tyrant’s  head  up  by  the  clotted  hair.” 

That  great  movement,  the  greatest,  perhaps, 
aside  from  the  birth  of  Christ,  in  the  annals  of 
the  world,  began  in  blood. 

I  am  also  reminded  of  the  fact,  that  during  the 
great  anti-slavery  agitation  in  this  country,  it  was 
not  until  John  Brown,  that  apostle  of  force,  struck 
his  blow  at  Harper’s  Ferry,  that  the  nation  was 
aroused  to  a  true  sense  of  the  nature  of  the  cancer 
that  was  gnawing  at  its  vitals.  It  was  the  blow  at 
Harper’s  Ferry  that  stirred  the  nation  from  its 
sleep  as  nothing  else  had  done.  Brown  was  hung, 
it  is  true,  but  the  glorious  cause  for  which  he 
struck  went  marching  on.  Von  Holst,  in  the  sev¬ 
enth  volume  of  his  History  of  the  United  States,  in 


36 


speaking  of  the  Harper’s  Ferry  episode,  says,  “By 
means  of  that  scaffold, — the  first  erected  in  the 
United  States  for  a  traitor,  and, indeed,  for  a  po¬ 
litical  criminal, — the  words,  “He  that  is  not  for  me 
is  against  me,  and  he  that  is  not  against  me,  is  for 
me,”  grew  to  the  fulness  of  truth.  Precisely 
because  it  was  conceded,  almost  without  contra¬ 
diction,  that  the  local  existence  of  slavery  had 
made  Brown’s  execution  a  necessity,  people  could 
not  help  having  universally  a  certain  feeling  of 
responsibility  for  it,  since  not  the  South  alone,  but 
the  entire  people,  bore  before  God  and  man  the 
responsibility  for  the  legal  existence  of  slavery. 
Hence,  if  not  loudly,  at  least  irrepressibly,  the  voice 
of  conscience,  in  numberless  breasts,  demanded  an 
answer  to  the  question,  whether  that  scaffold  was 
a  tree  of  malediction  and  ignominy  for  the  man 
who  had  to  breathe  his  life  out  upon  it,  or  rather 
for  the  people  who  were  compelled  by  their  insti¬ 
tutions  to  erect  it.  Brown’s  conduct,  from  the 
moment  of  his  arrest  until  his  latest  breath,  irre¬ 
sistibly  forced  new  multitudes,  every  day,  to  ask 
themselves  this  question,  with  the  honesty  and 
earnestness  which  its  dreadful  importance  de¬ 
manded  ;  and  the  number  of  those  from  whom  it 
wrested  the  right  answer,  and  who  had  the  courage 
publicly  to  confess  it,  swelled  to  even  greater  pro¬ 
portions.” 

Continuing,  he  says, — “The  attack  he  and  his 
twenty  men  made  on  slavery,  with  powder  and 


37 


lead,  was  a  sublime  piece  of  folly.”  Considered  in 
its  physical  aspects,  it  was  a  sublime  piece  of  folly; 
but  was  it  in  vain  ?  That  it  was  not,  is  evident 
from  Van  Holst’s  own  words,  for  he  goes  on  to  say, 
“The  fear  with  which  his  lawless  violence  had  in¬ 
spired  the  South  was  groundless,  but  the  slavoc- 
racy  had  no  arms,  offensive,  or  defensive,  against 
John  Brown,  overpowered,  mortally  wounded,  and 
hanged.  Even  in  his  boldest  dreams  he  had  never 
ventured  to  hope  that  he  would  be  able  to  deal 
slavery  a  blow  of  such  destructive  force  as  he  had 
now  dealt  it,  by  his  suffering  and  his  death.”  And 
so,  before  this  question  is  settled,  it  may  be  neces¬ 
sary  to  startle  the  nation  again  by  some  terrible 
tragedy  from  its  sleep  of  indifference  to  the  in¬ 
creasing  disregard  to  the  rights  of  the  Negro,  by 
the  same  power  that  held  him  down  before,  and 
against  which  John  Brown  leveled  his  blow.  Do 
not  misunderstand  me.  I  am  not  counseling  vio¬ 
lence  :  I  am  not  saying  that  it  is  a  wise  thing  for  the 
Negro  to  resort  to  violence;  but  I  am  saying  that 
sometimes  violence  is  the  means  which  God  uses 
to  arouse  the  sleeping  conscience,  and  pierce  the 
rhinoceros  hide  of  indifference.  I  trust  that  itmay 
not  be  necessary,  but  if  it  must  come,  then,  I  for 
one  say,  let  it  come,  and  the  sooner  it  comes  the 
better.  The  Negro  will  not  be  responsible  for  it. 
What  Lowell  says  of  the  oppressed  millions  of 
France  will  be  equally  true  of  him, 

“They  did  as  they  were  taught ;  not  theirs  the  blame, 

If  men  who  scattered  firebrands  reaped  the  flame.” 


3« 


There  is  in  this  same  wonderful  poem  a  lesson 
which  it  would  be  well  for  these  white  Southern 
bullies  and  Negro  haters,  whose  highest  ambition 
is  to  put  their  heels  on  the  neck  of  the  Negro,  to 
note  and  carefully  consider.  It  is  contained  in  the 
first  stanza: — 

“As,  flake  by  flake,  the  beetling  avalanches 

Build  up  their  imminent  crags  of  noiseless  snow, 

Till  some  chance  thrill  the  loosened  ruin  launches, 

And  the  blind  havoc  leaps  unwarned  below, — 

So  grew  and  gathered  through  the  silent  years 
The  madness  of  a  people,  wrong  by  wrong. 

There  seemed  no  strength  in  the  dumb  toilers’  tears, 

No  strength  in  suffering,  but  the  past  was  strong: 

The  brute  despair  of  trampled  centuries 

Leaped  up  with  one  hoarse  yell  and  snapped  its  bands, 
Groped  for  its  rights  with  horny,  callous  hands, 

And  stared  around  for  God  with  bloodshot  eyes. 

What  wonder  if  those  palms  were  all  too  hard 
For  nice  distinctions,  if  that  maddened  throng, — 

They  whose  thick  atmosphere  no  bard 

Had  shivered  with  the  lightning  of  his  song, 

Brutes,  with  the  memories  and  desires  of  men, 

Whose  chronicles  were  writ  with  iron  pen, 

In  the  crooked  shoulder  and  the  forehead  low, — 

Set  wrong  to  balance  wrong, 

And  physicked  woe  with  woe  ?” 

Things  cannot  go  on  in  the  way  in  which  they 
are  going  on  in  the  South,  without  producing  in 
the  Negro  a  feeling  of  bitterness,  of  hatred,  under 
a  sense  of  wrong,  which  is  bound,  sooner  or  later, 
to  have  its  harvest  of  blood.  That  is  the  teaching: 

o 


39 


of  experience;  that  is  the  way  these  things  work 
themselves  out.  This  was  the  thought,  evidently, 
in  the  mind  of  Longfellow  when  he  wrote  “The 
Warning.” 

“Beware.  The  Israelite  of  old,  who  tore 
The  lion  in  his  path,  when,  poor  and  blind, 

He  saw  the  blessed  light  of  heaven  no  more, 

Shorn  of  his  noble  strength  and  forced  to  grind 
In  prison,  and  at  last  led  forth  to  be 
A  pander  to  Philistine  revelry, — 

Upon  the  pillars  of  the  temple  laid 

His  desperate  hand,  and  in  its  overthrow 
Destroyed  himself,  and  with  him  those  who  made 
A  cruel  mockery  of  his  sightless  woe; 

The  poor,  blind  Slave,  the  scoff  and  jest  of  all, 

Expired,  and  thousands  perished  in  the  fall. 

There  is  a  poor,  blind  Samson  in  this  land, 

Shorn  of  his  strength,  and  bound  in  bonds  of  steel, 

Who  may,  in  some  grim  revel,  raise  his  hand, 

And  shake  the  pillars  of  this  Commonweal, 

Till  the  vast  temple  of  our  liberties 
A  shapeless  mass  of  wreck  and  rubbish  lies.” 

This  Negro  question  must  be  settled,  and  it  must 
be  settled  right:  and  until  it  is  settled  right,  there 
will  be  no  peace.  That  is  God’s  law.  It  is  vain  to 
cry,  peace,  peace,  as  long  as  iniquity  abounds. 
The  white  people  in  the  South,  and  the  white  peo¬ 
ple  in  the  North,  as  well,  who  sympathize  with  the 
Southern  estimate  of  the  Negro,  had  just  as  well 
understand,  once  for  all,  that  the  Negro  is  a  man 
and  an  American  citizen,  and  that  he  will  never  be 


40 


satisfied  until  he  is  treated  as  a  man,  and  as  a  full- 
fledged  citizen.  Until  his  manhood  is  recognized, 
and  all  his  rights,  civil  and  political,  are  accorded 
to  him,  he  will  never  hold  his  peace,  will  never 
cease  to  cry  aloud,  to  agitate,  to  make  trouble. 
He  would  be  a  fool  if  he  didn’t.  This  is  what  the 
Southern  whites,  and  the  Northern  symphathizers, 
might  just  as  well  understand,  I  say.  And  it 
would  be  well  also  for  the  representative  of  our 
race,  who  thinks  that  the  best  policy  for  us  to  pur¬ 
sue  is  self-effacement,  to  understand  it.  Self- 
effacement!  Show  me  a  Negro  who  believes  in 
self-effacement,  and  I  will  show  you  a  Negro,  who 
will  himself  sooner  or  later  become  effaced. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  danger  of  this  race, 
which  can  boast  of  a  Douglass, — that  noble  type  of 
heroic  manhood, — ever  consenting  to  self-efface¬ 
ment.  Why  the  very  thought  of  it,  is  enough  to 
bring  back  from  the  grave  that  old,  battle-scarred 
hero.  I  almost  seem  to  see  him  now,  in  view  of 
this  pernicious  doctrine  which  has  been  projecting 
itself  upon  our  attention  for  the  past  week  or  ten 
days,  coming  up  from  his  resting  place  in  yonder 
cemetery  with  disheveled  locks,  and  outstretched 
arms,  and  troubled  countenance,  and  saying  by  the 
expression  upon  his  face: — What  does  all  this 
mean?  Are  you  losing  your  senses,  my  people? 
Yes,  There  he  stands, — great  Douglass, — sad  of 
countenance,  and  with  an  affrighted,  terrified  look 
in  his  eyes.  Be  not  disturbed,  O  friend  of  many 


4i 


years,  O  great  champion,  who  didst  carry  this  race 
iii  thy  bosom  as  a  father  his  nursing  child,  dur¬ 
ing  all  thine  earthly  pilgrimage: — go  back  to  thy 
resting  place.  Have  no  fear.  We,  who  have 
looked  into  thy  face  ;  we,  who  have  heard  thy 
voice;  we,  who  have  caught  thy  spirit;  we,  who 
know  something  of  the  mighty  manhood  which 
burned  in  thy  breast,  will  never  consent  to,  or  in 
any  way  countenance,  the  pernicious  doctrine  of 
race-effacement.  We  pledge  ourselves  to-day,  as 
we  think  of  thee,  and  of  thy  great  compeers, — 
Garrison,  Phillips,  Sumner,  Whittier,  Lundy,  Love- 
joy,  Purvis, — and  of  our  brothers  in  the  South, 
lying  in  their  untimely  graves,  sent  there  by  the 
bullets  of  lawless  and  bloody  ruffians;  and  of  their 
loved  ones,  left  to  mourn  their  loss  in  their  lonely 
wanderings  in  solitary  places,  afraid  to  return  to 
their  homes, — as  we  think  of  thee,  and  of  all  these, 
we  pledge  ourselves  never  to  be  satisfied  with  any¬ 
thing  less  than  the  treatment  that  belongs  to  a 
man,  and  to  a  full-fledged  American  citizen.  We 
pledge  ourselves,  not  only  to  maintain  that  attitude 
ourselves,  but  to  teach  our  children,  and  our  chil¬ 
dren’s  children  to  do  the  same.  Fathers  and 
mothers,  you  who  are  here,  you,  who  have  little 
children  coming  up,  you  who  will  soon  pass  from 
the  stage  of  action,  remember  what  I  am  saying; 
see  to  it  that  your  children  catch  the  spirit  of 
which  I  am  speaking,  and  which  was  so  magnifi¬ 
cently  exemplified  in  the  character  of  our  great 


% 


42 


leader  and  champion.  Teach  your  sons  and  daugh¬ 
ters,  begin  when  they  are  little,  as  soon  as  they  are 
able  to  understand,  that  though  they  may  have  a 
dark  skin,  they  are  just  as  much  the  children  of 
God,  are  just  as  dear  to  him,  and  are  entitled  to  the 
same  rights  and  privileges,  under  the  Constitution, 
as  the  whitest  child.  Teach  them  that  they  have 
rights,  and  equal  rights,  with  the  whitest,  and  to 
stand  up  for  their  rights.  Teach  them  to  respect 
themselves,  and  not  to  despise  themselves  because 
they  happen  to  have  a  dark  skin.  Don’t  let  them 
get  into  their  heads  the  notion  that  because  they 
are  colored,  therefore,  they  must  efface  themselves, 
must  be  satisfied  with  less  than  is  accorded  to 
white  children.  Let  them  take  in  these  ideas  with 
the  first  breath  they  breathe,  with  the  milk  that 
they  suck  from  the  breast  of  motherhood,  and  let 
them  strengthen  with  their  age.  The  place  in 
which  to  kill  this  pernicious  doctrine  of  self- 
effacement,  and  to  beget  a  spirit  of  manliness  that 
will  take  care  of  itself,  in  the  battle  which  we  are 
waging  with  the  enemies  of  our  rights,  is  the 
home.  If  you,  fathers  and  mothers,  will  do  your 
duty,  in  a  short  while  there  will  not  be  found  in 
this  broad  land  a  single  Negro  advocating  this 
doctrine  of  self-effacement.  Everywhere  there 
will  be  found  a  sturdy  manhood,  that  will  com¬ 
mand  respect,  and  that  no  cowardly  ruffians  will 
be  found  trampling  upon  with  impunity. 


As  I  think  of  our  great,  departed  leader,  Doug¬ 
lass,  and  remember  that  there  is  a  school  building 
in  this  city  named  after  him,  and  that  his  portrait 
hangs  upon  its  wall,  and  that  there  has  been  inau¬ 
gurated  here  what  is  called  a  Douglass  Day,  in  the 
schools,  I  feel  that  I  have  a  message  also  for  the 
teachers, — you  who  meet  these  children  six  days 
out  of  the  week;  you  who  are  not  only  training 
their  intellects,  but  also  helping  to  mould  their 
characters, —  I  lay  upon  you  the  same  solemn 
charge  as  was  laid  upon  the  fathers  and  mothers. 
See  to  it  that  you  enforce  the  teachings  of  the 
home  in  this  respect;  that  you  do  your  part  in  giv¬ 
ing  to  your  pupils  just  conceptions  of  what  their 
rights  are,  and  the  spirit  in  which  they  should 
stand  up  for  them.  Catch  the  spirit  yourselves, 
and  see  to  it  that  you  put  it  into  them.  Whatever 
else  you  fail  in  doing,  whatever  else  you  may 
slight,  or  slur  over,  see  to  it  that  you  put  con¬ 
science  into  this, — for  the  destiny  of  a  race  is  in¬ 
volved  in  it.  The  real  issue  is,  whether  the  Negro 
shall  be  accorded  the  rights  and  privileges  of  a  man 
and  a  citizen  in  this  country;  and  the  way  to  meet 
this  issue,  is  to  develop  manhood  in  the  Negro.  A 
race  that  permits  itself  to  be  trampled  upon  will 
be  trampled  upon.  A  race  that  goes  around  with 
hat  in  hand,  in  a  cringing  attitude,  in  the  presence 
of  the  dominant  race,  as  if  it  were  afraid  to  claim 
anything,  lest  it  might  give  offense,  or  entail  suf¬ 
fering  upon  itself,  is  sure  to  be  an  object  of  con- 


44 


tempt.  Let  us  here,  to-day,  one  and  all  of  us,  be¬ 
fore  God, — in  this  sacred  place,  pledge  ourselves 
to  eternal  hostility  to  any  teaching  that  would 
put  the  Negro  in  such  an  attitude.  Be  assured 
that  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  compromising  with 
evil.  The  divine  injunction  is,  “  Resist  the  devil, 
and  he  will  flee  from  you;  and  if  as  a  race,  we  do 
not  resist  these  encroachments  upon  our  rights,  we 
will  be  trampled  upon  more  and  more.  Why,  the 
very  thought  of  race-effacement  stirs  me  to  the 
very  centre  of  my  being.  The  more  I  think  of  it, 
the  madder  I  get,  the  more  is  my  indignation 
aroused,  the  more  am  I  impressed  with  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  stamping  it  with  the  indelible  stigma  of 
abhorrence.  What  was  the  whole  historv  of  sla- 

J 

very  in  this  country,  but  an  attempt  on  the  part  of 
the  Southern  whites  to  efface  from  the  Negro 
every  element  that  went  to  make  a  man,  and  to  de¬ 
grade  him  to  a  mere  beast  of  burden?  And  now, 
after  more  than  thirty  years  of  freedom,  shall  the 
Negro  be  asked  to  take  up  this  work,  which  was 
begun  by  the  slave  oligarchy,  and  carry  it  on  by 
effacing  himself?  Why,  it  is  abhorrent.  “  Is  thy 
servant  a  dog,  that  he  should  do  this  thing?”  Such 
a  suggestion  coming  from  white  men  would  be 
bad  enough,  but  when  it  comes  from  black  men, — 
well,  I  will  not  characterize  it. 

Be  assured,  the  more  we  yield,  the  more  we  will 
be  called  upon  to  yield.  If  we  practice  self-efface¬ 
ment  in  one  respect,  in  obedience  to  the  demands 


45 


of  our  enemies,  we  will  be  called  upon  to  do  it  in 
others.  The  folly  of  such  a  course  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  very  spirit  out  of  which  the  demand  comes. 
It  is  the  spirit  which  denies  the  equality  of  the 
Negro;  which  assumes  that  he  belongs  to  an  inferior 
race, — an  inferiority  due  not  to  circumstances,  but 
inherent,  inborn,  God-ordained;  and  therefore,  be¬ 
cause  he  is  a  Negro,  he  has  no  right  to  expect,  or 
to  receive  the  same  treatment  as  a  white  man. 
Such  a  spirit  is  not  to  be  overcome  by  concession, 
by  self-renunciation,  but  by  self-assertion,  by  manly 
resistance.  That  was  the  gospel  that  was  preached 
by  the  sage  of  Anacostia,  by  Garnet,  by  Ward,  by 
the  champions  of  freedom  in  every  age  of  the 
world.  What  if  the  American  people  had  adopted 
the  principle  of  self-effacement,  in  the  presence  of 
the  unjust  demands  of  the  British  Crown?  Where 
would  we  be  to-day?  The  immortal  Declaration  of 
Independence  never  would  have  been  written,  and 
the  Revolutionary  War,  out  of  which  came  this 
great  Republic,  never  would  have  been  fought. 
What,  if  the  English  people  themselves  had  quiet* 
ly  submitted  to  the  tyranny  of  Ring  John,  where 
would  have  been  the  Magna  Charta?  When  Mr. 
Garrison  began  the  Anti-slavery  agitation  in  this 
country,  how  did  he  meet  the  slave  power?  As 
Lundy  had  done,  by  preaching  the  gospel  of  grad¬ 
ual  emancipation?  No:  but  by  the  demand  for 
immediate,  unconditional  emancipation.  And  it 
was  that  doctrine  that  won.  In  what  ^£>irit  did  he 


46 


meet  the  whole  nation,  North  as  well  as  South, 
when  the  press  and  the  pulpit,  and  the  army  and 
navy,  stood  behind  the  institution  of  slavery?  In 
an  apologetic,  and  compromising  tone?  No.  He 
said,  “  I  am  in  earnest;  I  will  not  excuse;-  I  will 
not  equivocate;  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch; 
and  I  will  be  heard.”  And  he  was  heard.  That  is 
the  spirit  that  always  conquers.  You  can’t  kill 
that  spirit,  the  individuals  breathing  it  may  die, 
but  its  influence  will  remain.  As  Byron  has  ex¬ 
pressed  it, 

“The  block  may  soak  their  gore ;  their  heads 

Be  strung  to  city  gates  or  castle  walls, 

But  still  their  spirit  walks  abroad.” 

In  the  struggle  with  oppression  in  this  couutrv, 
through  which  we  are  now  passing,  the  same  spirit, 
that  came  upon  Garrison  must  come  upon  us.  We 
must  be  in  earnest;  we  must  not  equivocate;  we 
must  not  excuse;  we  must  not  retreat  a  single  inch 
in  the  demand  which  we  make  for  complete  recog¬ 
nition  of  all  of  our  rights:  and  we  must  be  heard. 
That  is  the  gospel  that  I  believe  in;  that  is  the 
gospel  that  I  have  been  preaching,  and  shall  go  on 
preaching  as  long  as  God  gives  me  breath.  Stand¬ 
ing  in  this  sacred  desk  and  place,  and  in  your  pres¬ 
ence,  I  raise  my  right  hand  to  heaven,  and  say, 
Let  it  be  paralyzed,  if  I  am  ever  found  preaching 
any  other  gospel. 

But  I  have  not  yet  told  you  what  my  reasons  are 
for  being  hc^peful  of  the  future:  and  as  it  is  now  too 


47 


late  to  do  so,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  ask  your  indul¬ 
gence  for  yet  another  Sabbath.  I  am  glad  to  see 
so  many  here.  It  shows  that  we  are  interested  in 
race  issues.  God  grant  that  this  interest  may  go 
on  broadening  and  deepening. 


Sermon  HI. 

Signs  of  a  brighter  future. 


“Wait  on  the  Lord;  be  of  good  courage,  and  He  shall 
strengthen  thine  heart.  ’ — Psalm  27:14. 


FOR  the  past  two  Sabbaths,  I  have  been  speak¬ 
ing  of  some  of  the  discouraging  circumstances 
in  the  struggle  which  we  are  making,  for  our  rights 
in  this  country, — -the  growing  unfriendliness  of  the 
North,  the  hostility  of  the  press,  the  silence  and 
cowardice  of  the  Pulpit,  the  growing  spirit  of  law¬ 
lessness  in  the  South,  the  apathy  and  indifference 
of  the  general  government  and  of  both  political 
parties.  In  spite  of  all  these  discouragements, 
however,  I  believe  as  I  said  on  last  Sabbath,  that 
there  is  a  brighter  future  for  us  in  this  country. 
And  I  ground  this  belief  (1),  upon  the  fact  that 
the  Negro  is  thinking  about  his  rights  to-day, 
with  a  seriousness  and  earnestness  such  as  he  has 
never  displayed  before.  Not  only  the  more  in¬ 
telligent  and  thoughtful  Negro,  but  all  classes, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  from  the  most  in¬ 
telligent  to  the  most  illiterate.  The  recent  out¬ 
rage  that  was  perpetrated  at  Wilmington  by  a 


49 


band  of  law  breakers  and  murderers  has  stirred 
■our  people  as  nothing-  else  has  ever  done.  I  have 
seen  them  aroused  before,  but  never  as  at  present. 
Everywhere  the  feeling  is  the  same.  For  the 
moment,  this  bold,  brazen,  murderous  assault  upon 
our  rights,  and  the  conseqriences  to  which  it 
must  inevitabty  lead,  if  the  spirit  out  of  which  it 
has  come  is  allowed  to  go  unchecked,  has  crowded 
out  every  other  thought.  This  is  the  way  it  has 
affected  me,  and  this  is  the  way  it  has  affected  all 
with  whom  I  have  come  in  contact.  A  something  is 
touching  the  heart  of  the  Negro  as  I  have  never 
seen  it  touched  before.  What  is  it?  Wrhatdoesit 
all  mean?  It  it  the  instinct  of  self  preservation* 
It  means  that  the  Negro  is  waking  up  to  a  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  true  meaning  of  these  outrages,  that 
in  them  he  sees  a  studied,  persistent,  carefully 
thought  out  plan  to  despoil  him  of  his  rights.  It 
means  also,  the  growing  purpose  and  determina¬ 
tion  on  his  part  to  resist  these  aggressions.  And 
this  to  my  mind  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs 
of  a  brighter  day.  If  the  Negro  could  himself 
submit  to  these  outrages,  these  assaults  upon  his 
rights,  without  a  protest;  if  there  was  any  dispo¬ 
sition  on  his  part  to  quietly  acquiesce  in  them;  did 
they  not  fill  him  with  righteous  indignation;  were 
he  not  moved  to  growl  and  grumble  and  resist, 

,  then  would  there  be  indeed,  ground  for  despond¬ 
ency.  But  the  fact  that  he  does  not  quietly  submit, 
that  he  feels  outraged  by  them,  is  to  my  mind  one 


5° 


of  the  saving  qualities  in  his  character,  and  one  of 
the  most  hopeful  signs  of  his  ability  to  take  care 
of  himself  and  to  carve  out  for  himself  a  great  and 
honorable  future.  Thank  God  for  these  myriad 
voices  that  I  hear  everywhere  protesting  ;  for 
this  discontent  with  present  conditions  which  I 
see  everywhere  manifesting  itself.  The  very  thing 
which  so  many  of  our  enemies  are  finding  fault 
with,  are  using  against  us, — namely,  that  the  Negro 
is  becoming  more  and  more  insolent,  more  and  more 
obtrusive,  more  and  more  self-assertive, — is  the 
very  thing  which  gives  me  hope.  It  shows  that  he 
is  becoming  more  and  more  conscious  of  what  be¬ 
longs  to  him,  and  more  and  mor&  determined  to 
stand  up  for  his  rights.  That,  of  course,  is  a  very 
bad  sign  to  those  who  think  that  the  Negro  has 
no  rights  which  white  men  are  bound  to  respect. 
Every  demand  which  he  makes,  every  attempt  to 
stand  in  his  place  as  a  man  is  regarded  as  an  im¬ 
pertinence,  as  a  piece  of  insolence.  If  he  does  not 
lift  his  hat  in  the  presence  of  a  white  face,  and  take 
the  outside  of  the  sidewalk,  as  the  old  time  ante¬ 
bellum  Negro  used  to  do,  he  is  adjudged,  No  good, 
and  is  looked  upon  as  a  Negro  who  has  been  spoiled 
by  freedom.  No,  my  white  friends,  it  is  not  that 
he  has  been  spoiled  by  freedom,  but  that  under 
freedom  he  has  been  developing;  it  means,  that 
under  freedom  he  is  becoming  more  of  a  man, 
more  and  more  conscious  of  his  rights  ;  it  means 
that  the  scales  are  falling  from  his  eyes,  and  the 


5i 


glorious  light  of  freedom  is  streaming  in  upon  his 
vision.  It  is  Lowell  who  says  : 

‘‘When  a  deed  is  done  for  Freedom,  through  the  broad  earth’s 
aching  breast 

Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling  on  from  east  to’  west, 
And  the  slave,  where’er  he  cowers,  feels  the  soul  within  him 
climb 

To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood.” 

And  that  is  what  these  exhibitions  of  so-called 
insolence  mean  :  they  mean  that  the  Negro,  who 
was  once  a  slave  in  this  land,  under  the  bracing  air 
of  freedom,  is  beginning  to  “climb  to  the  awful 
verge  of  manhood.”  This  consciousness  which  is 
beginning  to  awake  in  him,  and  which  is  beginning 
to  show  signs  of  increasing  vitality,— the  conscious¬ 
ness  that  he  is  a  man,  and  that  he  is  entitled  to  be 
treated  as  a  man, — is  not  going  to  be  crushed  out 
under  the  iron  heel  of  oppression,  or  awed  into 
silence  by  armed  mobs  of  bloody  ruffians  in  the 
South,  or  by  the  acquiescence  and  sympathetic  sup¬ 
port  of  Northern  Negro  haters.  No  :  it  will  go  on 
gathering  strength.  The  Negro  is  bound  to  get 
his  rights,  or  else  there  will  be  trouble:  there  will 
be  trouble  anyhow,  but  it  won’t  last.  It  will  cease 
just  as  soon  as  the  whites  come  to  see  that  the 
Negro  himself  is  in  earnest,  that  he  means  to  claim 
his  rights,  and  to  have  them.  There  is  nothing 
which  this  Anglo-Saxon  race  honors  more  than 
manhood.  It  will  resent  it  at  first  in  other  races, 
especially  in  so-called  inferior  races,  but  when  it 


S2 


\ 


has  once  been  demonstrated,  it  will  respect  it.  And 
the  fact  that  the  Negro  is  developing  manhood  is 
a  hopeful  sign  that  his  rights  will  one  day  be  fully 
recognized. 

In  this  connection,  one  of  the  things  which  has 
encouraged  me  greatly  of  late  has  been  the  action 
of  the  colored  miners  who  were  imported  from 
Alabama  to  work  in  the  mines  of  Illinois,  because 
of  a  strike  on  the  part  of  the  white  laborers.  These 
black  men  needed  work  :  they  had  the  offer  of 
work  ;  they  accepted  the  offer,  as  they  had  a  right 
to  do,  and  proceeded  to  the  place  designated  by 
their  employers,  but  were  met  by  armed  men  who 
declared  that  they  should , not  carry  out  their  con¬ 
tract.  •What  did  these  Negro  laborers  do  ?  Run¬ 
away?  No,  they  prepared  to  defend  themselves, 
and  did  defend  themselves,  as  every  man  has  a  right 
to  do.  It  took  a  good  deal  of  courage  for  these 
men,  under  the  circumstances,  even  to  go  to  Illi¬ 
nois,  but  they  went  all  the  same.  Of  course,  under 
the  self-effacement  theory,  they  did  wrong,  they 
had  no  right  to  go.  They  knew  that  they  were  not 
wanted,  that  if  they  went  trouble  would  ensue,  and, 
therefore,  they  ought  to  have  stayed  away.  Peace 
is  the  thing,  according  to  this  doctrine,  that  we 
must  always  keep  in  view,  and  for  which  we  must 
be  willing  to  make  any  and  every  sacrifice:  and 
that  means,  not  peace  in  our  own  souls,  but  peace  in 
the  soul  of  the  white  man, — the  peace  that  the  lion 
feels  when  the  lamb  is  on  the  inside  of  him, — peace 


53 


in  the  sense  of  making  the  white  man  peaceably 
inclined  towards  ns.  In  other  words,  the  giving  np 
on  our  part  of  everything  in  us  which  the  white 
man  doesn’t  like,  which  may  be  displeasing  to  him. 
If  ever  there  was  a  doctrine  that  was  conceived  by 
the  evil  one,  it  is  certainly  this  doctrine  of  race 
effacement,  in  deference  to  the  Negro-hating  spirit 
of  the  South. 

The  black  miners,  who  went  from  Alabama  into 
Illinois,  took  no  stock  in  this  doctrine.  The  fact 
that  white  laborers  did  not  want  them  to  work 
did  not  influence  them  in  the  least  :  they  went 
straight  forward,  and  when  their  rights  were  as¬ 
sailed,  they  defended  themselves.  These  men  are 
still  in  Illinois,  and  they  are  likely  to  remain  there, 
and  to  pursue  their  work  unmolested.  It  is  in  the 
growth  of  this  spirit,  the  spirit  of  manly  resistance 
to  unjust  assaults  upon  our  rights,  which  I  see 
everywhere  manifesting  itself,  that  the  dawning  of 
a  better  day  for  us  in  this  land  is  to  be  found. 

(2.)  I  am  hopeful,  because  of  the  progress  which 
the  Negro  is  making  in  intelligence  and  in  wealth. 
Think  of  what  our  condition  was  at  the  close  of 
the  war,  and  of  what  it  is  to-day,  in  these  respects. 
That  we  are  progressing,  there  can  be  no  doubt : 
indeed,  in  view  of  all  the  circumstances,  our  prog¬ 
ress  has  been  marvelous. 

Take  the  matter  of  wealth.  Since  freedom,  hun¬ 
dreds  and  thousands  of  our  people  have  become 
property  owners  in  the  South.  Many  of  them  are 


54 


prosperous  and  successful  farmers  ;  thousands  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  of  land  have  come 
into  their  possession,  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
them  in  the  cities  own  their  own  homes,  and  are 
engaged  in  small  but  lucrative  business  enterprises 
of  one  kind  or  another.  They  are  now  paying  taxes 
on  some  three  hundred  million  dollars’  worth  of 
property.  That  is  not  a  very  large  sum,  I  admit, 
considered'  as  the  aggregate  wealth  of  a  whole 
race,  numbering  some  seven  or  eight  millions; 
but  whether  much  or  little,  it  indicates  progress, 
and  very  considerable  progress,  and  that  is  the 
point  to  which  I  am  directing  attention.  The  ac¬ 
quisitive  faculty  in  the  Negro  is  being  developed  ; 
his  eyes  are  being  opened  more  and  more  to  the 
importance  of  getting  wealth  :  and  slowly,  but 
surely,  he  is  getting  it. 

Educationally,  the  same  is  true.  Thirty  years 
ago  there  were  but  few  educational  institutions 
among  us,  but  few  professional  men, — doctors,  law¬ 
yers,  ministers, — ministers  of  intelligence, —  teach¬ 
ers;  but  few  men  and  women  of  education.  Now, 
there  are  thousands  of  well-equipped  men  and 
women  in  all  the  professions,  and  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  men  and  women  of  education  in  every 
part  of  the  country.  Not  only  are  there  institu¬ 
tions  founded  especially  for  our  benefit,  crowded 
with  students,  but  all  the  great  institutions  of 
the  land  are  now  open  to  us,  and  in  all  of  them, 
with  scarcely  an  exception,  are  to  be  found  rep- 


55 


resentatives  of  onr  race:  and  the  number  in 
such  institutions  is  steadily  increasing.  The  last 
report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  shows 
that  in  the  common  schools  of  the  sixteen  former 
slave  States  and  the  District  of  Columbia,  there  are 
enrolled  1,429,713  pupils,  and  that  in  these  schools, 
some  twenty-five  thousand  teachers  are  employed. 
It  also  shows  that  there  are  178  schools  for  second¬ 
ary  and  higher  education,  with  an  enrollment  of 
over  forty  thousand  pupils.  There  are,  of  course, 
thousands  of  our  people  who  are  still  very  ignorant, 
but  that  there  is  vastly  more  intelligence  in  the 
race  now,  than  at  the  close  of  the  war,  no  one  will 
pretend  to  deny.  The  colleges  and  universities, 
the  high  and  normal  schools,  are  turning  out  hun¬ 
dreds  of  graduates  every  year.  The  educational 
outlook  for  the  race  is  certainly  very  encouraging. 

In  view  of  these  two  factors, — the  growing  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  Negro  for  material  possessions, 
the  fact  that  he  is  actually  acquiring  property, 
and  his  Rowing  intelligence, — I  see  signs  of  a 
brighter  future  for  him.  These  are  elements  of 
power  that  will  make  themselves  felt.  You  may 
deprive  a  poor  and  ignorant  people  of  their  rights, 
and  succeed  in  keeping  them  deprived  of  them,  but 
you  can’t  hope  to  do  that  when  these  conditions 
are  changed:  and  the  point  to  which  I  am  directing 
attention  here,  is  that  this  change  is  taking  place. 
All  that  has  been  done,  and  is  being  done  to  stim¬ 
ulate  in  the  Negro  this  principle  of  acquisitive- 


56 


ness,  and  to  increase  his  thirst  for  knowledge,  is  a 
harbinger  of  a  better  day.  Every  dollar  saved,  or 
properly  invested;  every  atom  of  brain  power  that 
is  developed,  is  a  John  the  Baptist  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  crying,  Make  straight  the  pathway  of  the 
Negro.  In  proportion  as  the  race  rises  in  intelli¬ 
gence  and  wealth,  the  valleys  will  be  filled  and  the 
mountains  will  be  leveled,  that  now  stand  in  the 
way  of  his  progress,  in  the  way  of  the  complete 
recognition  of  all  of  his  rights.  Ignatius  Donnelly, 
in  that  remarkable  book  of  his,  “  Doctor  Huguet,” 
which  some  of  you,  doubtless,  have  read,  would 
seem  to  teach  the  opposite  of  this.  He  attempts  to 
show  that  never  mind  what  the  intellectual  at¬ 
tainments  of  the  Negro  may  be, — he  may  be  a 
Doctor  Huguet,  learned  with  all  the  learning  of 
the  schools,  and  cultured  with  all  the  culture  of  the 
ages, — still  there  is  no  chance  for  him,  there  is  no 
hope  of  his  being  recognized.  The  story  as  told 
by  him  is,  at  first,  quite  staggering  and  terribly 
depressing.  But  when  we  remember  t%at,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  story,  there  was  but  one  Dr.  Huguet  with 
a  black  skin,  and  that  he  was  poor,  and  that  all  the 
rest  of  his  race  were  poor  and  ignorant,  light  breaks 
in  upon  the  darkness,  the  awful  pall  which  it  casts 
upon  us,  is  at  once  lifted.  Ho,w  will  it  be  when 
instead  of  one  Dr.  Huguet,  there  are  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  them,  scholarly  men  and  women,  cul¬ 
tivated  men  and  women,  men  and  women  of  wealth, 
of  large  resources  ?  It  will  be  very  different.  If 


57 


the  Negro  was  indifferent  to  education;  if  he  was 
actually  getting  poorer,  then  we  might  lose  heart; 
but,  thank  God,  the  very  opposite  is  true*  His  face 
is  in  the  right  direction.  He  may  not  be  pressing 
on  as  rapidly  as  he  might  towards  the  goal,  as  rap¬ 
idly  as  some  of  us  might  wish  to  see  him,  but  it  is 
a  matter  for  congratulation,  that  he  is  not  retro¬ 
grading,  nor  even  standing  still,  but  is  moving  on. 
Poor?  Yes,  but  he  isn’t  always  going  to  be  poor. 
Ignorant?  Yes,  but  he  isn’t  always  going  to  be 
ignorant.  The  progress  that  he  has  already  made 
in  these  directions  shows  clearly  what  the  future  is 
to  be.  Knowledge  is  power;  wealth  is  power,  and 
that  power  the  Negro  is  getting.  He  is  not  always 
going  to  be  a  mere  hewer  of  wood  and  a  drawer  of 
water;  he  is  not  always  going  to  be  crude,  ignorant. 
American  prejudice  is  strong,  I  know;  it  is  full  of 
infernal  hate,  I  know,  but  in  the  long  run  it  will  be 
found  to  be  no  match  for  the  power  which  comes 
from  wealth  and  intelligence. 

(3.)  I  am  hopeful  because  I  have  faith  in  the  ulti¬ 
mate  triumph  of  right.  You  remember  what 
Lowell  says  in  his  “Elegy  on  the  Death  of  Dr. 
Channing:” 

“Truth  needs  no  champions:  in  the  infinite  deep 
Of  everlasting  soul  her  strength  abides, 

From  Nature’s  heart  her  mighty  pulses  leap, 

Through  Nature’s  veins  her  strength,  undying  tides. 

I  watch  the  circle  of  the  eternal  years, 

And  read  forever  in  the  storied  page 


One  lengthened  roll  of  blood,  and  wrong,  and  tears,— 

One  onward  step  of  Truth  from  age  to  age,. 

The  poor  are  crushed,,  the  tyrants  link  their  chain; 

The  poet  sings  through  narrow  dungeon-grates ; 

Man’s  hope  lies  quenched; — and,  lo,  with  steadfast  gain 
Freedom  doth  forge  her  mail  of  adverse  fates. 

Men  slay  the  prophets ;  fagot,,  rack,  and  cross 
Make  up  the  groaning  records  of  the  past ; 

But  Evil’s  triumphs  are  her  endless  loss. 

And  sovereign  Beauty  wins  the  soul  at  last.”- 

“From  off  the  starry  mountain-peak  of  song. 

The  spirit  shows  me,  in  the  coming  time. 

An  earth  unwithered  by  the  foot  of  wrong, 

A  race  revering  its  own  soul  sublime.” 

And  in  the  “Ode  to  France/’  from  which  I  quoted 
on  last  Sabbath,  the  same  glorious  thought  is  ex¬ 
pressed; — 

“And  surely  never  did  thine  altars  glance 
With  purer  fires  than  nowin  France; 

While,  in  their  bright  white  flashes, 

Wrong’s  shadow,  backward  cast. 

Waves  cowering  o’er  the  ashes 
Of  the  dead,  blaspheming  past, 

O’er  the  shapes  of  fallen  giants. 

Mis  own  unburied  brood. 

Whose  dead  hands  clench  defiance 
At  the  overpowering  good; 

And  down  the  happy  future  runs  a  flood 
Of  prophesying  light; 

It  shows  an  Earth  no  longer  stained,  with  blood. 

Blossom  and  fruit  where  now  we  see  the  bud 
Of  Brotherhood  and  Right.” 


59 


That  is  my  faith.  The  wrong  may  triumph  for 
the  moment,  but  in  its  very  triumph  is  its  death- 
knell;  it  cannot  always  prevail.  God  has  so  con¬ 
stituted  the  moral  universe,  has  so  planted  in  the 
human  heart  the  sense  of  right,  that  ultimately 
justice  is  sure  to  be  done.  ’“Ever  the  Right  comes 
uppermost,”  is  no  mere  poetic  fancy,  but  one  of 
God’s  great  laws.  In  the  light  of  that  law,  I  am 
hopeful.  I  know  that  things  cannot  go  on  as  they 
are  going  on  now,  that  the  outrageous  manner  in 
which  we  are  at  present  treated  cannot  always 
continue.  It  is  bound  to  end  sooner  or  later. 

(4.)  I  am  hopeful,  because  I  have  faith  in  the 
power  of  the  religion  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to 
conquer  all  prejudices,  to  break  down  all  walls  of 
separation,  and  to  weld  together  men  of  all  races 
in  one  great  brotherhood.  It  is  a  religion  that 
teaches  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood 
of  man,  a  religion  in  which  there  is  neither  Greek 
nor  Jew,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  or  free.  And 
this  religion  is  in  this  land.  There  are,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  statistics  of  the  churches  for  1898, 
excluding  Christian  Scientists,  Jews  and  Latter 
Day  Saints,  135,667  ministers  in  the  United  States, 
187,075  churches,  and  26,100,884  communicants  in 
these  churches.  This  would  seem  to  be  a  guarantee 
that  every  right  belonging  to  the  Negrowould  be 
secured  to  him:  that  in  the  struggle  which  he  is 
making  in  this  country  for  simple  justice  and  fair 
play,  for  manhood  recognition,  for  such  treat- 


6a 


rnent  as  his  humanity  and  citizenship  entitle  him, 
back  of  him  would  be  found  these  135,667  ministers, 
187,075  churches  and  26,100,884  church  members. 
But,  alas,  such  is  not  the  case.  These  professed 
followers  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  who  came  to 
seek  and  to  save  the  lost,  who  was  the  friend  of  . 
publicans  and  sinners,  whose  gospel  was  a  gospel 
of  love,  and  who  vcas  all  the  time  reaching  down 
and  seeking  to  befriend  the  lowly,,  those  who  were 
despised  and  who  were  being  trampled  upon  by 
others; — the  Christ  of  whom  it  is  written,. “And  he 
shall  not  judge  after  the  sight  of  his  eyes,  neither 
reprove  after  the  hearing  of  his  ears:  but  with 
righteousness  shall  he  judge  the  poor,  and  reprove 
with  equity  for  the  meek  of  the  earth;  and  who 
in  speaking  of  himself  said,  “The  spirit  of  the 
Lord  God  is  upon  me;  because  he  hath  sent  me  to 
bind  up  the  broken  hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to 
the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them 
that  are  bound;  to  comfort  all  that  mourn;  to  give 
them  a  garland  for  ashes,  the  oil  of  joy  for  mourn¬ 
ing,  the  garment  of  praise  for  the  spirit  of  heavi¬ 
ness:” — these  professed  followers  of  this  wonder¬ 
fully  glorious  Christ,  instead  of  standing  back  of 
the  poor  Negro  in  the  earnest,  desperate  struggle 
which  he  is  making  against  this  damnable  race- 
prejudice,  which  curses  him  because  he  is  down, 
branding  him  with  vile  epithets,  calling  him  low, 
degraded,  ignorant,  besotted:  and  yet  putting  its 
heel  upon  his  neck  so  as  to  prevent  him  from  ris- 


ing:  despising  him  because  he  is  down,  and  hating 
him  when  he  manifests  any  disposition  to  throw 
off  his  ignorance  and  degradation  and  show  him¬ 
self  a  man; — in  this  struggle,  I  say,  against  this 
damnable  race-prejudice,  these  professing  Christ¬ 
ians  are  often  his  worst  enemies,  his  most  malig¬ 
nant  haters  and  tradircers.  In  the  bloody  riot  at 
Wilmington,  when  law  and  order  and  decency 
were  trampled  under  foot,  there  were  not  only 
church  members  among  the  lawless  ruffians  who 
subverted  the  government  and  destroyed  life  and 
property,  but  even  ministers  of  the  gospel,  we  are 
told,  were  out  with  muskets  on  their  shoulders, 
ready  to  shoot  down  black  American  citizens,  for 
no  crime,  unless  it  be  a  crime  for  a  Negro  to  exer¬ 
cise  his  constitutional  right. 

If  I  could  bring  myself  to  believe  by  any  process 
of  reasoning,  that  these  people  were  really  Christ¬ 
ians,  it  would  drive  me  into  infidelity:  I  would 
utterly  repudiate  such  a  religion.  But  I  know 
that  they  are  not  Christians:  I  know  that  the  re¬ 
ligion — I  was  about  to  say,  which  they  profess,  but 
rather  which  they  possess, — is  not  Christianity.  It 
is  a  miserable  lie  to  say  that  it  is.  And  you  know 
that  it  is  a  lie:  and  I  know  that  it  is  a  lie:  and 
these  very  people  who  profess  to  be  Christians 
know  that  they  are  lying;  and  God,  before  whose 
judgment  seat  they  shall  one  day  stand  to  answer 
for  their  cowardly  and  brutal  treatment  of  a  weak 
and  struggling  race,  or  their  quiet  acquiescence  in 
it,  knows  that  they  are  lying. 


62 


In  saying  that  the  religion  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is, in  this  land,  I  do  not  therefore,  base  my 
assertion  upon  the  fact,  that  there  are  135,667  min¬ 
isters  in  it,  and  187,075  churches,  and  26,100,884 
professing  Christians.  No.  The  American  Church 
as  such  is  only  an  apology  for  a  church.  It  is  an 
apostate  church,  utterly  unworthy  of  the  name 
which  it  bears.  Its  spirit  is  a  mean,  and  cowardly, 
and  despicable  spirit.  “One  shall  chase  a  thou¬ 
sand,  we  are  told  in  the  good  Book — and  two  shall 
put  ten  thousand  to  flight.  “  And  yet  with  135,667 
preachers,  and  more  than  26,000,000  church  mem¬ 
bers  in  this  land,  this  awful,  black  record  of 
murder  and  lawlessness  against  a  weak  and  de¬ 
fenseless  race,  still  goes  on.  In  the  presence  of 
this  appalling  fact,  I  can  well  understand  the 
spirit  which  moved  Theodore  Parker, — that  pulpit 
Jupiter  of  his  day, — when  in  his  great  sermon  on 
“The  True  Idea  of  a  Christian  Church,”  he  said, 
“In  the  midst  of  all  these  wrongs  and  sins, — the 
crimes  of  men,  society  and  the  State, — amid  pop¬ 
ular  ‘ignorance,  pauperism,  crime  and  war,  and 
slavery  too, — is  the  church  to  say  nothing,  do 
nothing:  nothing  for  the  good  of  such  as  feel  the 
wrong,  nothing  to  save  them  who  do  the  wrong  ? 
Men  tell  us  so,  in  word  and  deed;  that  way  alone 
is  safe  !  If  I  thought  so,  I  would  never  enter 
the  church  but  once  again,  and  then  to  bow  my 
shoulders  to  their  manliest  work,  to  heave  down  its 
strong  pillars,  arch  and  dome,  and  roof,  and  wall, 


^3 


steeple  and  tower,  though  like  Samson  I  buried 
myself  under  the  ruins  of  that  temple  which  pro¬ 
faned  the  worship  of  the  God  most  high,  of  God 
most  loved.  I  would  do  this  in  the  name  of  man; 
in  the  name  of  Christ  I  would  do  it;  yes,  in  the 
dear  and  blessed  name  of  God.”  And  I  would  do 
it,  too. 

In  spite  of  the  shallowness  and  emptiness  and 
glaring  hypocrisy  of  this  thing  which  calls  itself 
the  church,  this  thing  which  is  so  timid,  so  cow¬ 
ardly  that  it  dares  not  touch  any  sin  that  is  un¬ 
popular,  I  still  believe  that  Christianity  is  in  this 
land.  To-day  it  is  like  a  little  grain  of  mustard 
seed,  but  it  has  entered  the  soil,  has  germinated, 
and  is  springing  up.  It  is  like  the  little  lump  of 
leaven  which  the  woman  hid  in  three  measures  of 
meal:  but  it  has  begun  to  work,  and  will  go  on 
working,  diffusing  itself,  until  the  whole  is  leav¬ 
ened.  God  has  promised  to  give  to  his  Son  the 
heathen  for  his  inheritance,  and  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth  for  his  possession:  and  in  that 
promise  this  land  is  included.  Christianity  shall 
one  day  have  sway  even  in  Negro-hating  America; 
the  spirit  which  it  inculcates,  and  which  it  is 
capable  of  producing,  is  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to 
prevail.  I  have,  myself,  here  and  there,  seen  its 
mighty  transforming  power.  I  have  seen  white 
men  and  women  under  its  regenerating  influence 
lose  entirely  the  caste  feeling,  to  whom  the  brother 
in  black  was  as  truly  a  brother  as  the  brother  in 


64 


white.  If  Christianity  were  a  mere  world  influ¬ 
ence,  I  should  have  no  such  hope;  but  it  is  some¬ 
thing  more  than  a  mere  world  influence;  it  is  from 
above;  back  of  it  is  the  mighty  power  of  God.  The 
record  is,  “To  as  many  as  received  him  to  them 
gave  he  power  to  become  children  of  God,  even  to 
them  that  believed  on  his  name,  which  were  born, 
not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of 
the  will  of  man,  but  of  God.”  It  can  do  what  no 
mere  human  power  can  do.  Jesus  Christ  is  yet  to 
reign  in  this  land.  I  will  not  see  it,  you  will  not 
see  it,  but  it  is  coming  all  the  same.  In  the  growth 
of  Christianity,  true,  real,  genuine  Christianity  in 
this  land,  I  see  the  promise  of  better  things  for  us 
as  a  race. 

(5.)  I  have  faith  in  a  brighter  future  for  us  in 
this  country,  because  both  in  the  North  and  in  the 
South,  there  are  some  white  men,  and  some  white 
women,  too,  who  do  not  approve  of  the  present 
treatment  which  is  accorded  to  us,  or  share  in  the 
sentiment  which  regards  us  as  naturally  inferior 
to  the  whites,  as  designed  by  Nature  for  a  lower 
plane.  There  are  some  white  people  in  this  coun¬ 
try,  who  believe  that  the  Negro  is  a  man,  and  that 
he  is  entitled  to  be  treated  as  a  man;  that  he  is  a 
citizen,  and  that  he  ought  to  have  all  the  rights 
that  belong  to  a  citizen,  both  civil  and  political. 
There  are  not  a  great  many,  I  admit,  but  there  are 
some.  A  part  of  these  are  timid;  they  see  the 
wrong;  they  feel  the  wrong;  they  deeply  deplore 


the  conduct  of  their  own  race,  but  they  are  afraid 
to  speak  out,  to  give  public  expression  to  their  sen¬ 
timents.  They  are  like  Nicodemus  of  old,  who 
could  say  to  Jesus,  “  Thou  art  a  teacher  come  from 
God,  for  no  man  can  do  the  miracles  that  thou  dost 
except  God  be  with  him,”  and  yet  who  came  to  him 
by  night,  for  fear  of  offending  public  sentiment. 
There  are  in  the  Southland  to-day  men  who  feel  to¬ 
wards  the  brother  in  black,  just  as  Nicodemus  felt 
towards  Christ, — who  feel  kindly  towardshim,  who 
have  faith  in  him,  who  believe  that  he  is  entitled  to 
better  treatment,  but  who  are  kept  from  speaking 
for  fear  of  social  ostracism  and  personal  violence. 
Bishop  Dudley  of  Kentucky,  some  years  ago,  wrote 
an  article  entitled,  “The  Silent  South,”  if  I  re¬ 
member  correctly,  the  design  of  which  was  to  show 
that  in  the  South  itself,  there  were  those  who  did 
not  approve  of  the  brutal  treatment  that  was  accord¬ 
ed  to  the  Negro.  And  this  sentiment,  though  at 
present  suppressed,  is  not  always  going  to  be 
silent.  It  is  bound  to  grow,  to  get  stronger  and 
stronger  as  the  years  go  by.  I  have  hope  of  these 
Nicodemuses  in  the.  South;  the  time  is  coming,  I 
believe,  when  they  will  stand  out  boldly  for  the 
right.  I  am  encouraged  in  this  by  the  reflection 
that  the  man  who  timidly  came  to  Jesus  by  night 
afterwards  openly  spoke  up  for  him  before  the 
Sanhedrin,  and  after  his  crucifixion  brought  large 
quantities  of  myrrh  and  aloes  for  embalming  his 
body.  The  time  came  when  he  was  not  ashamed 


or  afraid  to  have  it  known  that  he  believed  in 

*  ■'  V  •  •  f  ■  ‘ 

Jesus  as  the  Christ.  These  timid  ones  in  the  South 
will  not  always  be  timid. 

But  in  addition  to  these  silent  sympathizers 
with  us  in  our  struggle  against  caste  prejudice, 
there  are  those  who  are  not  silent,  who  speak  out 
their  sentiments;,  who  have  been  crying  out  and 
are  still  crying  out  against  these  wrongs;  who 
have  been  working  and  are  still  working  to  help 
us  in  the  struggle.  Among  these  may  be  men¬ 
tioned  Dr.  W.  Hayes  Ward  of  The  Independent, 
a  big-brained  and  big-hearted  man,  whose  noble 
editorials  for  years  have  been  a  source  of  strength 
and  inspiration  to  us.  I  know  of  no  man  who 
appreciates  more  fully  the  nature  of  the  fight 
that  we  are  making,  or  who  more  deeply  sympa¬ 
thizes  with  us  than  he  does.  A  few  years  ago  he 
delivered  a  sermon  before  the  American  Mission¬ 
ary  Association,  which  was  one  of  the  most  manly, 
courageous,  and  magnificent  utterances  ever  made 
on  the  Negro  problem  in  this  country.  It  dealt 
especially  with  the  persistent  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  Southern  whites  to  humiliate  us,  to  keep  us 
down,  and  declared  in  the  strongest  terms  possible, 
undying  hostility  to  all  such  efforts.  It  was  wor¬ 
thy  of  the  anointed  lips  of  Garrison  himself  in  his 
best  days.  It  had  all  the  fire,  and  fervor,  and 
majesty,  and  tone  of  command  of  one  of  the  old 
prophets  sent  by  God  to  speak  to  the  sleeping  con¬ 
science  of  the  nation.  You,  who  have  been  read- 


ing  The  Independent,  within  the  past  few  weeks, 
know  how  fearlessly  it  has  spoken  out  against  the 
outrages  in  North  and  South  Carolina.  And  as 
long  as  W.  Hayes  Ward  is  at  the  helm  it  will  con¬ 
tinue  to  speak  out  in  behalf  of  the  down-trodden, 
the  oppressed.  God  has  put  this1  man  in  this  cita¬ 
del  of  power,  at  the  head  of  the  greatest  religious 
weekly  in  the  land,  and  his  guns  have  always  been 
leveled  at  the  enemies  of  human  'right,  at  oppres¬ 
sion  and  mob  violence;  he  has  always  wielded  his 
vast  powers  in  the  interest  of  law,  and  order,  and 
good  government;  in  the  interest '  of  the  poor, 
struggling,  much-abused,  and  ill-treated  Negro. 
That  paper  is  making  public  sentiment,  is  helping 
to  prepare  the  way  for  better  things.  The  seed 
which  it  is  sowing  will  be  gathered  after  many 
days. 

Mention  should  also  be  made  of  Albion  W.  Tour- 
gee,  who  has  made  great  sacrifices  for  us,  and 
whose  voice  and  pen  have  been  used  unsparingly 
in  our  behalf.  Also  of  George  W.  Cable,  who  has 
found  time  in  the  midst  of  his  busy  literary  labors, 
to  utter  a  word  of  protest  against  the  barbarism 
of  the  South,  and  in  the  interest  of  the  op¬ 
pressed, — a  man  who  rather  than  stifle  his  convic¬ 
tions,  rather  than  hold  his  peace,  left  the  land  of 
his  birth  and  came  where  he  would  be  free  to  ex¬ 
press  the  sentiments  of  his  heart. 

Mention  should  also  be  made  of  such  men  as 
the  Tolberts  of  South  Carolina.  You  have  read 


68 


their  history,  you  know  what  kind  of  men  they  are. 
Braver,  truer  men  are  not  to  be  found  anywhere. 
In  an  article  published  in  the  issue  of  The  Inde¬ 
pendent,  November  25th,  by  R.  R.  Tolbert,  who  is 
Chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Committee, 
and  at  the  recent  election,  was  the  Republican 
candidate  for  Congress,  in  the  district  which  in¬ 
cludes  Greenwood  County  and  the  town  of  Phxoe- 
nix,  the  following  statement  will  be  found. 
“  Twenty-five  years,  ago  the  State  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina  achieved  an  unenviable  prominence  for  its 
race  riots;  the  white  man  being  as  usual  the  ag¬ 
gressor,  and  the  black  man  the  aggrieved.  The 
only  whites  who  then  shared  the  sufferings  of  the 
Negroes  belonged  to  the  carpet-bag  class, — men 
who  had  come  into  the  State  as  temporary  sojourn- 
♦  ers,  worked  their  way  into  politics  and  organized, 
or  tried  to  organize,  the  Negro  vote  against  the 
Bourbon  Democracy.  Within  three  weeks  that 
reign  of  terror  has  been  revived,  with  my  kins¬ 
men  and  myself  as  its  most  conspicuous  victims, 
although  my  father  was  an  officer  in  the  Confed¬ 
erate  army,  and  my  grandfather  and  great-grand¬ 
father  have  lived  on  the  same  soil  where  I  have 
expected  to  rear  my  children.  Our  crime  consists, 
not  in  entering  the  State  as  strangers,  and  usurp¬ 
ing  its  political  control,  but  in  venturing  to  have 
partisan  ties  of  our  own,  and  to  uphold  the  right 
of  all  citizens,  white  or  black,  under  the  constitu¬ 
tion,  to  cast  a  free  vote,  and  to  have  it  counted." 


69 


In  describing  the  bloody  affair  at  Phoenix,  dur¬ 
ing  which  his  brother  Tom  was  shot  and  mortally 
wounded,  he  says,  “  In  the  heat  of  the  fight,  Ether¬ 
idge  was  killed,  and  the  Negroes  who  had  been 
helping  my  brother  were  disabled  by  wounds,  and 
Tom  himself  fell  with  one  charge  of  buckshot  in 
his  neck,  another  in  his  left  side,  and  a  third 
in  his  left  arm.  In  spite  of  his  sufferings,  he  strug¬ 
gled  to  his  feet  and  turned  upon  the  crowd,  saying: 
“I  have  not  a  friend  left  at  my  back.  You  have 
shot  me  nearly  to  death,  but  you  have  not  changed 
my  politics  one  iota.”  What  a  magnificent  exhib¬ 
ition  of  courage,  of  manhood  was  that.  Talk  about 
the  three  hundred  who  fell  at  Thermopylae — there 
isn’t  any  thing  finer  than  that  in  all  history.  In 
the  very  face  of  death,  shrieking  in  the  ears  of  his 
murderers  his  undying  allegiance  to  what  he  felt 
to  be  right, — “I  have  not  a  friend  left  at  my  back. 
You  have  shot  me  nearly  to  death,  but  you  haven’t 
changed  my  politics  one  iota.”  And  what  was 
his  politics?  The  assertion  of  the  right  of  all  cit¬ 
izens,  white  or  black,  under  the  Constitution,  to 
cast  a  free  vote,  and  to  have  it  counted.  Was  that 
a  mere  empty  sentiment  with  him?  Do  men  ex¬ 
pose  themselves  to  danger,  to  hardships,  yea,  to 
death  itself,  for  a  mere  empty  sentiment? 

I  am  encouraged,  I  say;  I  see  the  promise  of  bet¬ 
ter  things  in  store  for  us,  in  the  fact  that,  in  this 
great  Northland,  there  are  men  like  W.  Hayes  Ward, 
Albion  W.  Tourgee,  George  W.  Cable;  and  in  the 


UK 


70 


Southland  men  like  the  Tolberts  of  South  Carolina. 
These  men  will  pass  from  the  stage  of  action;  they 
are  already  passing,  the  course  of  some  of  them  is 
already  nearly  run,  but  others  will  come  up  to  take 
their  places.  This  type  of  men  will  never  be  want¬ 
ing.  We  are  not  going  to  be  left  to  fight  our  bat¬ 
tles  alone.  The  press  may  remain  hostile;  a  cow¬ 
ardly  pulpit  may  continue  to  be  silent;  a ;  hundred 
thousand  ministers  of  the  gospel  may  continue  to 
put  padlocks  upon  their  cowardly  lips,  in  obedience 
to  the  demand  of  a  Negro-hating  public  sentiment, 
but  God  will  raise  up  friends  for  us  all  the  same. 
In  the  great  struggle  against  physical  bondage, 
years  ago,  how  he  touched  the  heart  and  consci¬ 
ence  of  one  and  anothor,  here  and  there:  and  how 
they  came  up  from  quarters  where  we  least  ex¬ 
pected.  Garrison  heard  a  voice,  and  Phillips  heard 
a  voice,  and  Sumner  heard  a  voice,  and  Whittier 
heard  a  voice,  and  Gerritt  Smith,  and  Parker  Pills- 
bury,  and  Theodore  D.  Weld,  and  Lydia  Maria 
Child,  and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  and  a  host  of 
others,  heard  a  voice,  and  were  not  disobedient  to 
the  heavenly  call.  And  in  this  struggle,  hearts 
will  also  be  touched,  and  a  voice  will  also  be 
heard,  and  will  not  be  heard  in  vain. 

I  have  been  speaking  now  about  forty  minutes, 
and  do  not  think  I  ought  to  detain  you  longer. 
I  have  not  as  yet,  however,  said  all  that  is  in  my 
heart.  There  are  a  few  things  more  that  I  would 
like  to  say,  and  which  I  will  take  the  opportu- 


7i 


nity  of  saying  on  next  Sabbath.  .The  subject  is  a 
large  one,  and  cannot  be  disposed  of  in  one  or  two 
discourses.  The  very  interest  which  you  have 
been  manifesting  in  what  I  have  been  endeavor¬ 
ing  to  say,  on  these  successive  Sabbaths,  has  been 
to  me  one  of  the  most  promising  signs  of  a 
brighter  future:  for  I  am  sure  it  is  not  the  speaker 
who  has  drawn  you,  but  your  interest  in  the  matter 
under  discussion. 


Sermon  IV. 

God,  and  Prayer  as  Factors  in  the  Struggle. 

“Wait  on  the  Lord;  be  of  good  courage,  and  He  shall 
strengthen  thine  heart.” — Psalm  27:14. 

IN  my  discourse  on  last  Sabbath  I  pointed  out 
five  reasons  why  I  was  hopeful  of  a  brighter 
future  for  us  in  this  land:  namely, — the  growth  of 
manhood  in  the  Negro, — the  growing  sense  in  him 
of  what  he  is  entitled  to,  and  his  determination  to 
stand  up  for  his  rights;  the  fact  that  he  is  making 
progress  in  wealth  and  education;  the  certainty 
that  right  is  ultimately  to  triumph;  the  presence  of 
the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  land,  and  its  pow¬ 
er  to  conquer  all  prejudices,  to  break  down  all  walls 
of  separation,  and  to  weld  together  into  one  great 
brotherhood  men  of  all  races;  and  the  fact,  that 
both  in  the  North  and  in  the  South  there  are  white 
men  and  women,  who  do  not  believe  in  the  treat¬ 
ment  which  is  accorded  to  us,  and  who  are  in  sym¬ 
pathy  with  us  in  the  fight  which  we  are  making. 

There  are  two  other  grounds  of  hope  to  which 
I  desire  to  direct  attention  this  morning,  in  clos¬ 
ing,  and  they  are  the  ones  pointed  out  in  the  words 


73 


of  our  text, — “  Wait  on  the  Lord;  be  of  good  courage, 
and  He  shall  strengthen  thine  heart;  wait  I  say  on 
the  Lord.”  In  the  Revised  Version,  it  reads, — 
“  Wait  on  the  Lord:  be  strong,  and  let  thine  heart 
take  courage;  yea,  wait  thou  on  the  Lord.” 

The  (i)  ground  of  hope  to  which  our  attention  is 
here  directed  i£  in  the  fact  that  God  is.  The  being 
of  God  is  asserted.  There  is  a  God,  the  Psalmist 
says.  He  calls  him  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Abraham, 
of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob;  the  God  to  whom  Moses 
referred  when  he  said  to  the  children  of  Israel, 
with  the  Red  Sea  before  them,  and  the  advancing 
hosts  of  the  Egyptians  behind  them,  “Stand  still 
and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord.”  Yes  God  is. 
This  universe  is  not  the  result  of  blind,  uncon¬ 
scious  forces;  back  of  all  that  we  see  is  a  great  in¬ 
telligence.  That  intelligence  we  call  God;  that  is 
the  great  Being  to  whom  the  Psalmist  here  refers, 
to  whom  he  directs  attention.  God !  how  important, 
is  the  thought.  Let  us  get  hold  of  it:  let  the  idea 
sink  deep  into  our  hearts.  It  will  help  us  to 
weather  the  storms  that  are  before  us,  and  nerve 
us  for  the  conflicts  that  await  us  in  our  efforts  to 
rise,  and  in  our  struggles  for  recognition  against  a 
bitter,  Negro-hating  spirit  of  caste.  It  was  this 
thought, — the  thought  of  God, — that  brought  hope 
back  to  the  almost  despairing  soul  of  Frederick 
Douglass,  many  years  ago,  during  one  of  the  dark¬ 
est  periods  of  the  anti-slavery  struggle.  You  re¬ 
member  the  story.  It  was  at  a  great  meeting:  Mr. 


74 


Douglass  was  speaking  in  the  most  despairing  tone. 
Everything  was  against  us,  apparently:  there  was 
hardly  a  ray  of  light  to  illumine  the  darkness  as 
he  looked  out  into  the  future.  He  was  going  on  in 
this  dismal  strain,  when  he  was  interrupted  by 
Sojourner  Truth,  who  said,  “  Is  God  dead,  Fred¬ 
erick?”  That  shot  a  ray  of  light  into  his  soul,  and 
revived  his  drooping  spirits.  GodJJt  is  impossi¬ 
ble  to  project  that  great  thought  into  the  mind  of 
man,  in  any  emergency  or  crisis  in  his  life,  without 
bracing  him  up,  without  giving  him  something  to 
lean  upon.  It  was  the  prop  that  Sojourner  Truth 
laid  hold  upon,  and  that  sustained  her  during  all 
that  long  and  painful  and  discouraging  struggle 
through  which  she  passed  in  the  death-grapple 
with  slavery.  And  it  will  sustain  us,  if  we  will 
lay  hold  of  it,  in  the  equally  momentous  struggle 
through  which  we  are  passing. 

Higher  than  man,  than  all  mundane  influences, 
than  principalities,  and  powers,  and  might,  and 
dominion,  than  even  the  mightiest  names  of  earth, 
is  a  great  Being,  without  beginning  of  days,  or  end 
of  years,  who  knows  all  things,  who  has  all  power, 
and  who  is  infinite  in  justice.  This  great  Being  is 
on  the  throne  of  the  universe;  he  holds  the  scepter 
of  universal  empire.  Because  God  reigns,  there  is 
hope  for  the  oppressed,  for  the  down-trodden,  for 
all  upon  whose  necks  the  iron  heel  of  oppression 
rests.  There  need  be  no  fear  as  to  the  ultimate 
result,  as  to  the  final  issue.  Hence  the  language 

•C5  O 


75 


of  the  Psalmist,  “  The  Lord  reigneth.”  The  very 
thought  thrills  him,  and  he  calls  upon  the  whole 
earth  to  rejoice.  “The  Lord  reigneth;  let  the 
earth  rejoice;  let  the  multitude  of  isles  be  glad. 
Clouds  and  darkness  are  around  about  him:  right¬ 
eousness  and  judgment  are  the  foundation  of  his 
throne.”  In  that  fact  he  sees  ultimately  the 
righting  of  alj.  wrongs,  the  breaking  of  all  yokes, 
and  the  oppressed  going  free.  If  the  Devil  was  on 
the  throne  of  the  universe,  there  would  be  no  such 
ground  of  rejoicing;  no  such  hope  could  possibly 
exist.  But  he  is  not  on  the  throne.  It  is  true  he 
is  called  the  “God  of  this  world,”  and  at  times 
would  seem  to  be  all  powerful  in  it,  but  it  is  only 
apparent.  There  is  but  one  supreme  power  in  the 
universe;  and  to  that  power  one  day  every  knee 
is  to  bow,  and  every  tongue  confess.  There  has 
been  no  abdication  on  the  part  of  God.  Because 
wrong  goes  on,  it  doesn’t  mean  that  everything 
has  been  turned  over  to  the  evil  one;  that  wrongs 
are  never  to  be  righted.  No,  there  is  a  Just  One, 
who  never  slumbers  nor  sleeps,  and  who  is  not  in¬ 
different  to  what  is  going  on.  He  will  one  day 
“  make  requisition  for  blood.”  Isaiah  tells  us 
that  “  righteousness  is  the  girdle  of  his  loins,  and 
faithfulness  the  girdle  of  his  reins.”  ,, 

The  thought  in  the  mind  of  the  Psalmist,  as  ex¬ 
pressed  in  the  words  of  the  text,  is, — Keep  that 
great  Being  in  mind;  don’t  lose  sight  of  him, — 
of  the  fact  that  he  is,  and  what  he  is.  And  the 


7  6 


promise  is,  “  He  shall  strengthen  thine  heart,” 
he  will  hold  you  up,  will  keep  you  from  becoming 
utterly  cast  down;  will  put  new  life  and  energy 
and  hope  in  you;  will  bring  you  out  more  than  con¬ 
queror.  Isaiah  expresses  the  same  thought  in  the 
fortieth  chapter  of  his  prophecy.  “  Hast  thou  not 
known?  hast  thou  not  heard,  that  the  everlasting 
God,  the  Lord,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary?  There  is  no 
searching  of  his  understanding.  He  giveth  power 
to  the  faint;  and  to  themthat  have  no. might  he 
increaseth  strength.  Even  the  youths  shall  faint 
and  be  weary,  and  the  young  men  shall  utterly  fall : 
but  they  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their 
strength;  they  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as 
eagles;  they  shall  run,  and  not  be  weary;  and  they 
shall  walk,  and  not  faint. ” 

Take  away  this  idea  of  God;  banish  the  thought 
of  such  a  being,  and  the  outlook  would,  indeed,  be 
dismal.  But  it  cannot  be  done:  everywhere  it 
meets  us.  In  external  nature  we  see  traces  of  his 
footsteps.  “The  heavens  declare  his  glory,  and 
the  firmament  sheweth  his  handiwork,”  and  in  the 
inner  world,  in  the  deeper  recesses  of  our  own 
natures,  we  see  in  the  still  small  voice  of  con¬ 
science  a  witness  to  his  existence.  Yes,  God  is, 
ancf  because  he  is,  there  is  hope  for  the  oppressed 
Negro  in  this  land.  The  Lord  of  all  the  earth  will 
see  that  right  is  done. 


I 


77 


“Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger;  history’s  pages  but  record 
One  death  grapple  in  the  darkness  ’twixt  old  systems  and  the 
Word; 

Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  forever  on  the  throne, — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and  behind  the  dim  un¬ 
known, 

Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above  his 
own.” 

(2).  The  ground  of  hope, — understanding  by  the 
expression,  “  Wait  on  the  Lord,”  the  formal  pre¬ 
sentation  of  our  case  to  him  with  a  view  to  his 
interposition, — is  to  be  found  in  the  efficacy  of 
prayer.  Prayer  is  a  power.  It  is  a  mighty  power. 
It  is  one  of  the  mightiest  forces  in  the  universe. 
It  is  Tennyson  who  says, — 

“More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of.” 

And  a  greater  than  Tennyson  has  said,  “In  noth¬ 
ing  be  anxious;  but  in  everything,  by  prayer  and 
supplication,  with  thanksgiving,  let  your  requests 
be  made  known  unto  God.  And  the  peace  of  God, 
which  passeth  all  understanding,  shall  guard  your 
hearts  and  your  thoughts  in  Jesus  Christ.”  The 
Bible  is  full  of  illustrations  of  the  power  of  prayer. 
When  God  appeared  unto  Moses  in  the  burning 
bush,  he  said  to  him,  “I  have  surely  seen  the  afflic¬ 
tions  of  my  people  which  are  in  Egypt,  and  have 
heard  their  cry  by  reason  of  their  taskmasters.” 
What  was  that  cry  ?  It  was  the  cry  to  high  heaven 
that  went  up  from  his  suffering  people.  And  God 
says,  “I  have  heard  their  cry,  and  am  come  down 


7§ 


to  deliver  them.”  In  the  time  of  Hezekiah,  Sen¬ 
nacherib,  king  of  Assyria,  we  are  told,  sent  Rab- 
shakeh  with  a  great  army  to  Jerusalem,  to  besiege 
it.  The  record  is,  “Then  Rabshakeh  stood,  and 
cried  with  a  loud  voice  in  the  Jews’  language  and 
spake,  saying,  Hear  ye  the  word  of  the  great  king 
of  Assyria.  Thus  saith  the  king,  Let  not  Hezekiah 
deceive  you;  for  he  shall  not  be  able  to  deliver  you 
out  of  his  hand:  neither  let  Hezekiah  make  you 
trust  in  the  Lord,  saying,  The  Lord  will  surely 
deliver  us,  and  this  city  shall  not  be  given  into  the 
hand  of  the  king  of  Assyria.  Hearken  not  unto 
Hezekiah:  for  thus  saith  the  king  of  Assyria,  Make 
your  peace  with  me,  and  come  out  to  me;  and  eat 
ye  every  one  of  his  vine,  and  every  one  of  his  fig 
tree,  and  drink  ye  every  one  the  waters  of  his  own 
cistern;  until  I  come  and  take  you  away  to  a  land 
like  your  own  land,  a  land  of  corn  and  wine,  a  land 
of  bread  and  vineyards,  a  land  of  oil  olive,  and  of 
honey,  that  ye  may  live,  and  not  die:  and  hearken 
not  unto  Hezekiah,  when  he  persuadeth  you,  say¬ 
ing,  The  Lord  will  deliver  us.  Hath  anv  of  the 
gods  of  the  nations  ever  delivered  his  land  out  of 
the  hand  of  the  king  of  Assyria  ?  Where  are  the 
gods  of  Hamath,  and  of  Arpad  ?  where  are  the  gods 
of  Sepharvain,  of  Hena,  and  Ivvah  ?  have  they  de¬ 
livered  Samaria  out  of  my  hand  ?  Who  are  they 
among  all  the  gods  of  the  countries,  that  have  de¬ 
livered  their  country  out  of  my  hand,  that  the 
Lord  should  deliver  Jerusalem  out  of  my  hand  ?” 


4 


79 

But  we  are  told  that  Hezeldah  went  into  the  house 
of  the  Lord  and  prayed:  and  what  a  prayer  it  was, 
“O  Lord,  the  God  of  Israel,  that  sitteth  upon  the 
cherubim,  thou  art  the  God,  even  thou  alone,  of  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth;  thou  hast  made  heaven 
and  earth.  Incline  thine  ear,  O  Lord,  and  hear; 
open  thine  eyes,  O  Lord,  and  see;  and  hear  the 
words  of  Sennacherib,  wherewith  he  hath  sent  him 
to  reproach  the  living  God.  Of  a  truth,  O  Lord, 
the  kings  of  Assyria  have  laid  waste  the  nations 
and  their  lands,  and  have  cast  their  gods  into  the 
fire:  for  they  were  no  gods,  but  the  work  of  men’s 
hands,  wood  and  stone;  therefore  they  have  de¬ 
stroyed  them.  Now,  therefore,  O  Lord,  our  God, 
save  thou  us,  I  beseech  thee,  out  of  his  hand,  that 
all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  may  know  that  thou 
art  the  Lord  God,  even  thou  only.”  And  you  re¬ 
member  what  the  result  was:  the  prophet  Isaiah 
was  instructed  to  say  to  the  king  that  his  request 
would  be  granted: — “  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  the  God 
of  Israel,  Whereas  thou  hast  prayed  to  me  against 
Sennacherib,  king  of  Assyria,  I  have  heard  thee.” 
So  when  the  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  to  Zacha- 
rias,  the  declaration  was,  “Fear  not,  Zacharias: 
because  thy  supplication  is  heard,  and  thy  wife, 
Elizabeth,  shall  bear  thee  a  son.”  And  did  not 
Jesus  himself  say,  “Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  unto 
you  ?”  And  in  James  v:  17,  18,  is  it  not  recorded: — 
“  Elijah  was  a  man  of  like  passions  with  us,  and 
he  prayed  fervently  that  it  might  not  rain:  and 


8o 


* 


it  rained  not  on  the  earth  for  three  years  and  six 
months.  And  he  prayed  again;  and  the  heavens 
gave  rain,  and  the  earth  brought  forth  her  fruit.” 

There  is  nothing  clearer  in  the  Word  of  God  than 
the  fact  that  there  is  power  in  prayer,  that,  through 
it,  effects  may  be  produced,  that  definite  results  may 
be  accomplished.  This  power  may  be  made  to  play 
an  important  part  in  the  great  struggle  through 
which  we  are  passing  in  this  country.  It  played  a 
most  important  part,  I  believe,  in  the  struggle  out 
of  bondage  into  freedom.  We  speak  of  the  labors 
of  Garrison  and  Sumner  and  Phillips,  and  the  whole 
host  of  anti-slavery  agitators;  we  speak  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  of  the  clash  of 
arms,  as  agents  in  bringing  about  the  final  result: 
and  they  were  most  important  agents, — too  much 
cannot  be  said  in  praise  of  all  that  was  done,  of  the 
magnificent  fight  that  was  made  by  our  soldiers  in 
the  face  of  rebel  bullets,  and  by  the  reformers  on 
the  bloodless  fields  of  thought  and  sentiment, — of 
the  moral  heroism  and  physical  courage  that  were 
displayed.  But  the  poor  slave  himself,  I  believe, 
had  a  part  in  that  struggle  second  to  none;  it  was 
the  part  which  he  played  on  his  knees.  In  the  rude 
cabins  of  the  South,  in  lonely  places,  in  the  seclu¬ 
sion  of  the  forest,  in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  the 
voice  of  the  slave  was  heard  in  piteous  appeals  to 
heaven.  When  they  were  hoeing  in  the  cotton 
field,  when  the  crack  of  the  overseer’s  whip  was 
sounding  in  their  ears,  when  their  backs  were 


8 1 


smarting  under  the  lash  of  the  hard  taskmaster, 
when  they  stood  upon  the  auction  block,  when 
families  were  broken  up, — the  father  going  in  one 
direction,  the  mother  in  another,  and  the  children 
in  still  another, — there  went  up  from  their  bleed¬ 
ing  hearts  the  cry  to  heaven,  *•  Bow  long,  O  Lord, 
how  long?”  Every  day,  every  night,  almost  every 
hour  in  every  day,  the  cry  of  their  bleeding  hearts 
was  poured  into  the  ear  of  heaven.  And  I  believe, 
as  mighty  as  were  the  other  influences,  there  was 
none  more  potential  than  this.  Prayer  was  their 
only  weapon  at  that  time,  and  how  mightily  did 
they  wield  it.  And  we  know  with  what  result. 
The  answer  came  at  last,  and  they  went  out  from 
under  the  yoke  of  bondage,  free  men  and  free  wom¬ 
en;  went  out,  after  wrestling  earnestly  in  prayer 
with  God  for  deliverance.  The  God,  who  said  to 
Moses,  “  I  have  seen  the  affliction  of  my  people  in 
Egypt,  and  have  heard  their  cry,  and  am  comedown 
to  deliver  them,  came  down  in  answer  to  the  prayers 
that  went  up  from  the  rude  cabins  of  the  South, 
from  the  cane-brakes  and  the  rice  fields,  and  the 
cotton  patches,  and  brought  deliverance.  And  this 
same  power  is  available  to-day.  Lawless  ruffians 
may  keep  the  Negro  away  from  the  polls  by  shot¬ 
guns;  and  by  unrighteous  laws  and  intimidation 
may  shut  him  out  of  first-class  cars,  but  there  is 
no  power  by  which  all  the  combined  forces  of  evil 
in  the  South  can  keep  him  from  approaching  the 
throne  of  grace.  Here  is  one  thing,  thank  God, 


82 


that  this  Negro-hating  spirit  cannot  do, — it  cannot 
prevent  him  from  praying.  What  is  prayer? 

“Prayer  is  the  soul’s  sincere  desire. 

Uttered  or  unexpressed; 

The  motion  of  a  hidden  fire, 

That  trembles  in  the  breast. 

Prayer  is  the  burden  of  a  sigh. 

The  falling  of  a  tear, 

The  upward  glancing  of  an  eye. 

When  none  but  God.  is  near.” 

Thank  God,  I  say,  this  lawless,  murderous,  Ne¬ 
gro-hating  spirit  that  is  running  riot  in  the  South, 
that  unblushingly  flaunts  its  shame  in  the  face  of 
the  civilized  world,  while  it  may  murder  Negroes, 
and  despoil  them  of  their  civil  and  political  rights, 
cannot  prevent  them  from  lifting  their  e-yes  to 
heaven,  or  breathing  a  prayer;  nor  can  it  shut  the 
ears  of  heaven  to  their  cries.  It  may  shut  the  ears 
of  a  cowardly  pulpit,  and  a  prejudiced  church,  but 
there  its  power  stops.  It  cannot  block  the  way  of 
approach  to  the  Holy  of  Holies.  God  has  opened 
the  way,  and  no  man  can  shut  it:  all  the  powers 
of  darkness  cannot  do  it.  Into  that  august  pres¬ 
ence  the  Negro  may  come,  black  though  he  may 
be,  ignorant  though  he  may  be,  poor  though  he 
may  be,  with  the  same  assurance  of  acceptance  as 
the  whitest,  the  most  cultivated,  the  most  wealthy. 

What  use  shall  we  make  of  this  power  ?  Shall  we 
allow  it  to  remain  dormant,  unused  ?  Shall  we  not 
avail  ourselves  of  this  privilege  ?  Shall  we  not 


§3 


begin,  in  earnest,  to  ask  God  to  take  a  hand  in  this 
struggle  in  which  we  are  engaged  ?  It  is  a  sug¬ 
gestion  that  is  well  worthy  of  our  most  serious 
consideration.  In  addition  to  what  we  are  already 
doing,  we  should  add  this  power  of  prayer;  should 
make  our  troubles  more  a  subject  of  prayer  than 
we  do.  Some  seven  years  ago  this  thought  was 
brought  to  our  attention,  as  some  of  you  will  re¬ 
member.  The  idea  originated,  I  believe,  with 
Peter  H.  Clark,  and  after  consultation,  an  address 
was  issued  “To  the  Colored  People  of  the  United 
States  and  Their  Friends,”  calling  upon  them  to 
set  apart  a  day  for  special  prayer.  After  setting 
forth  the  sad  condition  of  our  people, ‘the  unjust 
discriminations  against  us,  the  brutal  manner  in 
which  we  are  treated  in  the  South,  and  the  seem¬ 
ing  inability  or  indisposition  of  those  in  authority 
to  protect  us,  it  closes  in  these  words:  “  To  whom, 
then,  can  we  turn,  save  to  the  Lord  God;  to  him 
who  has  the*power  to  enlighten  and  soften  men’s 
hearts;  to  him,  who  brought  Israel  out  of  bondage 
with  many  signs  and  wonders;  to  him,  who  re¬ 
cently  in  the  history  of  our  country  caused  the 
wrath  of  man  to  praise  him,  and  forced  from  the 
unwilling  hand  of  Abraham  Lincoln  the  Emanci¬ 
pation  Proclamation.  Let  us  turn  to  him: — 

We  therefore  request  you  to  set  aside  the  thirty- 
first  day  of  May  next  as  a  day  of  humiliation,  fast¬ 
ing,  and  prayer.  Let  the  more  devout  fast  faith¬ 
fully.  Let  all  pray.  Let  the  farmer  leave  his 


84 


plough,  the  mechanic  his  bench,  the  business  man 
his  shop,  let  the  schoolmaster  secure  for  himself 
and  pupils  a  vacation,  let  those  employed  as  house¬ 
hold  servants  get  leave  of  absence. 

Let  us  meet  in  our  places  of  worship,  and  there, 
led  by  our  ministers,  devoutly  pray  to  Almighty 
God:  First,  That  if  it  is  our  fault  that  the  hearts  of 
our  fellow  countrymen  are  so  cruelly  turned  against 
us,  He  will  show  us  the  evil,  and  give  us  the  wis¬ 
dom  to  remove  it.  Second:  That  our  white  fellow 
citizens  may  be  made  to  see  that  the  only  security 
for  the  continuance  of  Republican  institutions  is 
found  in  the  observance  of  law  by  all,  however 
powerful,  and  by  the  extension  of  its  protection 
to  all,  however  weak;  that  he  will  make  them  see 
that  in  permitting  these  lynchings  they  are  sow¬ 
ing  .a  wind  which  will  grow  a  whirlwind  in  the 
time  of  their  children. 

Finally,  that  they  will  remember  our  lately  en¬ 
slaved  condition,  that  the}T  will  not  forget  our 
centuries  of  toil  without  requital  upon  the  fields 
of  their  fathers,  and  that  instead  of  visiting  us 
with  proscription  and  murder,  they  will  be  patient 
with  our  short-comings  and  encourage  us  to  rise 
to  that  level  of  intelligence  and  virtue  which  marks 
the  character  of  a  good  citizen.” 

This  address  was  signed  by  Peter  H.  Clark,  Fred¬ 
erick  Douglass,  Bishops  Daniel  A.  Payne,  Benjamin 
T.  Tanner,  and  A.  W.  Wayman,  Booker  T.  Wash¬ 
ington,  J.  C.  Price,  Albion  W.  Tourgee,  T.  Thomas 


35 


Fortune,  W.  S.  Scarborough,  Frances  E.  Harper, 
George  T.  Downing,  John  M.  Langston,  and  many 
other  representative  men  and  women.  It  was 
printed,  I  believe,  in  all  of  the  colored  newspapers 
throughout  the  country,  and  was  very  generally 
observed.  Hundreds  and  thousands  of  our  people 
met  in  their  respective  places  of  worship,  and  gave 
themselves  up  to  prayer.  It  attracted  very  wide 
attention:  it  was  noticed  in  many  of  the  leading 
journals  of  the  country.  In  an  editorial  in  the 
New  York  Evangelist  of  June  2nd,  the  editor,  in 
commenting  upon  it,  said,  “The  fact  that  the  col¬ 
ored  people  of  the  United  States  spent  Tuesday  of 
this  week  as  a  day  of  fasting  and  prayer  to  Al¬ 
mighty  God,  that  he  would  deliver  their  race  from 
persecution  and  injustice,  and  grant  them  the  free 
enjoyment  of  life,  liberty,  the  pursuit  of  happiness 
and  full  protection  in  their  persons,  homes,  and  in 
the  exercise  of  dll  legal  rights  and  privileges  in 
every  part  of  the  American  Union,  is  one  that  may 
well  give  Christians  pause.  It  is  a  solemn  thing 
when  seven  millions  of  souls,  however  poor  and 
humble  they  may  be,  carry  their  appeal  from  man’s 
injustice  to  the  bar  of  the  Almighty.  It  is  a  seri¬ 
ous  matter  for  a  nation  when  any  body  of  people, 
however  few,  betake  themselves  not  to  revolt,  but 
to  prayer.” 

This  is  a  line  of  attack  upon  our  enemies  that  we 
cannot  afford  to  lose  sight  of.  I  do  most  earnestly 
wish,  therefore,  that  the  suggestion  which  was 


86 


made  in  the  address  which  was  issued  nearly  seven 
years  ago  might  be  revived.  And,  that  in  addition 
to  the  setting  apart  a  day  annually  for  prayer  in 
our  churches,  all  believers  might  be  urged  to  bring 
the  matter  to  the  attention  of  God,  also  in  their 
private  devotions.  Praying  only  once  a  year  won’t 
do;  praying  in  public  and  by  the  ministers  only 
won’t  do;  there  must  be  constant  prayer,  every  .day, 
and  by  all  of  God’s  people.  In  the  church,  in  our 
Endeavor  meetings,  in  our  Sabbath  school  gather¬ 
ings,  at  the  family  altar,  and  in  the  secret  cham¬ 
ber,  on  week  days  and  Sabbath  days,  by  clergy 
and  laity, — the  whole  religious  strength  of  the 
race  ought  to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  sub¬ 
ject,  the  cry  that  goes  up  to  heaven  ought  to  be 
the  cry  of  a  united  people,  of  all  who  believe  in 
God  and  in  the  power  of  prayer. 

What  are  we  to  pray  for?  For  self-effacement, 
political  or  otherwise?  No.  For*  a  cowardly  and 
unmanly  spirit  of  submission  to  outrage,  without 
entering  a  protest  ?  No.  For  quietacquiescence  in 
the  desire  to  keep  us  poor  and  ignorant,  mere 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  to  make 
of  us  a  mere  servile  race?  No,  emphatically  no* 
What  are  we  to  pray  for,  then  ?  (i).  That  God 

would  help  us  by  His  grace  to  be  true  men  and 
women;  that  He  would  put  deep  down  into  our 
souls  a  divine  unrest,  a  holy  ambition  to  be  some¬ 
thing,  and  to  m'ake  something  of  ourselves;  that 
He  would  kindle  in  our  heart  of  hearts  a  desire 


87 


for  the  things  that  are  true,  and  just,  and  pure,  and 
lovely,  and  of  good  report;  that  he  would  help  us 
all  to  come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  perfect  mail, 
unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness 
of  Christ.  What  we  need  is  development  along 
every  line  that  makes  for  righteousness,  for  a  bet¬ 
ter,  purer,  nobler  manhood  and  womanhood.  It  is 
our  duty  to  pray  to  God  to  help  us,  to  puUhis  great, 
strong  arm  under  us  while  we  struggle  up  the  steep 
and  difficult  ascent 

“on  stepping  stones 
Of  our  dead  selves  to  higher  things.” 

We  have  faults,  of  course,  and  very  serious  ones: 
this  no  one  has  ever  denied.  It  would  be  strange 
if  we  had  not,  after  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  slavery,  an  institution  which  attached  no  im¬ 
portance  whatever  to  virtue,  and  which  ignored 
entirely  the  family  idea.  The  very  purpose  of 
slavery  was  to  make  the  Negro  a  mere  beast  of 
burden,  to  degrade  him  to  the  level  of  the  brute. 
That  anything  was  left  in  him,  upon  which  to  rear 
the  superstructure  of  a  self-respecting  manhood 
and  womanhood,  is  the  marvel.  The  white  race  it¬ 
self  is  not  free  from  faults.  It  has  had  more  than  a 
thousand  years  of  culture  and  civilization  behind 
it,  and  yet  it  has  faults,  and  very  serious  ones.  If 
I  were  disposed  to  draw  an  indictment  against  it,  I 
think  I  could  draw  a  very  strong  one,  one  that 
would  not  be  very  flattering  to  its  pride.  I  think 


88 


the  faults  of  the  Negro,  measured  by  the  divine 
standard,  are  not  a  whit  worse  than  those  of  the 
whites.  In  many  respects  their  sins  are  the  same. 
The  Negro  is  said  to  be  licentious;  well,  so  are  the 
whites.  Are  all  white  men  paragons  of  virtue? 
Where  did  all  the  mulattoes  in  the  South  come 
from  ?  Were  the  old  masters  forced  by  their  black 
slaves  to  part  with  their  virtue,  or  was  the  reverse 
true  ?  Were  the  slaves  the  aggressors,  or  the  mas¬ 
ters  ?  And  to-day,  the  South,  that  holds  up  its 
hands  in  holy  horror  at  the  thought  of  miscegena¬ 
tion,  thinks  nothing  of  the  illicit  intercourse  be¬ 
tween  white  men  and  colored  women.  In  the  last 
Constitutional  Convention  of  South  Carolina,  Sec¬ 
tion  34  of  the  new  Constitution  reads  as  follows: 
“The  marriage  of  a  white  person  with  a  Negro  or 
with  a  mulatto,  or  person  who  shall  have  one- 
eighth  or  more  of  Negro  blood,  shall  be  unlawful 
and  void.”  To  this  section,  the  Hon.  Robert  Smalls 
proposed  an  amendment,  adding  after  the  word 
“void,”  in  the  second  line,  the  words,  “and  any 
white  person  who  lives  and  cohabits  with  a  Negro, 
mulatto,  or  person  who  shall  have  one-eighth  or 
more  of  Negro  blood,  shall  be  disqualified  from 
holding  any  office  of  emolument  or  trust  in  this 
State,  and  the  offspring  of  any  such  living  or  co¬ 
habiting  shall  bear  the  name  of  the  father,  and 
shall  be  entitled  to  inherit  and  acquire  property 
the  same  as  if  they  were  legitimate.” 


«9 


In  support  of  this  amendment,  Mr.  Smalls  said, 
among  other  things:  “This  entire  matter,  sir 
has  no  right  in  the  Constitution  of  the  State.  If 
your  women  are  as  pure  as  you  stated,  and  I  have 
reason  to  believe  that  they  are,  they  can  be  trusted; 
then  why  the  necessity  of  this  being  placed  in  the 
Constitution?  Can  you  not  trust  yourselves  ?  Is 
it  because  these  wrongs  that  have  been  perpe¬ 
trated  here  since  the  formation  of  the  govern¬ 
ment,  make  you  feel  that  you  cannot  be  trusted  ? 
When  I  say  you,  I  mean  the  white  men  of  the  entire 
State.  I  fear  not;  hence  I  trust  the  amendment 
will  be  adopted.  These  wrongs  have  been  done, 
and  are  still  being  done.  They  are  not  done  by 
colored  men;  they  are  done  by  white  men.  If  a 
Negro  should  improperly  approach  a  white  woman,  „ 
his  body  would  be  hanging  on  the  nearest  tree, 
filled  with  airholes,  before  daylight  next  morning, 
and,  perhaps,  prope’rly  so.  If  the  same  rule  were 
applied  on  the  other  side,  and  white  men  who  in¬ 
sulted  or  debauched  Negro  women  were  treated 
likewise,  this  convention  would  have  to  be  ad¬ 
journed  sine  die  for  lack  of  a  quorum.”  At  this 
point  he  was  called  to  order  by  some  member  on 
the  floor,  to  which  he  made  this  reply:  “The  gen¬ 
tleman  called  me  to  order,  stating  that  I  had  re¬ 
flected  on  the  convention.  I  do  not  wish  to  reflect 
on  the  convention,  but  do  say,  that  if  he  has  clean 
hands,  he  will  keep  his  seat,  because  I  do  mean  to 
reflect  on  any  man  who  objects  to  the  intermar- 


go 


riage  of  a  Negro  or  a  mulatto  woman  with  a  white 
man,  and  is  not  willing  to  prohibit  the  cohabita¬ 
tion,  which  is  the  root  and  branch  of  the  evil. 
Stop  this  evil,  and  there  will  be  no  occasion  for 
your  intermarriage  law.”  And  yet,  in  the  face  of 
this  pointed  speech,  incredible  as  it  may  seem, 
the  amendment  was  defeated:  every  white  man 
voting  against  it.  That  proves  conclusively,  of 
course,  that  licentiousness  is  a  sin  peculiar  to  the 
Negro,  that  white  men  are  never  guilty  of  violat¬ 
ing  the  Seventh  Commandment. 

Another  charge  made  against  the  Negro  is  that 
he  will  steal:  that  is  also  a  sin  peculiar  to  the  race. 
White  men  never  steal,  of  course.  Who  are  all 
these  absconding  bank  cashiers  and  other  trusted 
officials  that  I  read  of  from  time  to  time  in  the 
newspapers  ?  Are  they  white  men  or  colored  men  ? 
Who  are  the  men  who  adulterate  our  food  prod¬ 
ucts,  who  run  up  prices  by  forming  iniquitous 
combinations  of  various  kinds,  and  in  this  way,  by 
overcharging,  rob  the  consumers  of  millions  of 
dollars?  Are  they  white  men  or  colored  men  ?  The 
only  difference  that  I  can  see  between  the  two  races 
is,  that  the  one  steals  on  a  small  scale,  the  other  on 
a  large  scale, — the  one  takes  a  few  dollars,  or  a  few 
dollars’  worth,  the  other  takes  hundreds  and  thou¬ 
sands  of  dollars.  The  one  kind  of  stealing  is  re¬ 
garded,  I  know,  as  more  respectable  than  the  other, 
but  it  is  stealing  all  the  same.  It  is  safe  to  con¬ 
clude  that  stealing  is  as  much  a  peculiarity  of  one 
race  as  the  other. 


91 


One  of  the  things  that  I  have  never  been  able  to 
understand,  is  the  lofty,  self-complacent  air  with 
which  the  white  man  deals  with  the  faults  and  im¬ 
perfections  of  the  Negro.  It  is  always  on  the  as¬ 
sumption  that  he  is  all  right,  and  that  the  Negro  is 
all  wrong.  It  never  seems  to  occur  to  him  that  he 
has  any  faults  at  all;  if  he  happens  to  be  guilty  of 
the  same  offence,  it  becomes  very  much  less  hein¬ 
ous  in  him.  A  violation  of  the  Seventh  Command¬ 
ment  makes  the  Negro  a  low  brute;  the  white  man, 
especially  if  it  happens  to  be  with  a  woman  not 
of  his  own  race,  still  remains  a  gentleman,  is 
guilty  only  of  a  little  indiscretion.  Who  ever 
heard,  in  all  the  Southland,  with  its  boasted  civil¬ 
ization,  and  its  hypocritical  cant  about  the  fear  of 
contamination  with  an  inferior  race,  of  a  white 
man  being  ostracised,  shut  out  from  respectable 
society,  because  of  his  known  intimacy  with  a 

x 

woman  of  color?  That  kind  of  thing,  according  to 
the  moral  standard  in  vogue  there,  is  either  not 
’regarded  as  a  sin,  or  is  winked  at. 

The  white  man  seems  to  be  surprised  that  the 
Negro  is  not  perfect,  that  he  is  not  a  paragon  of 
all  the  virtues;  he  is  constantly  abusing  him,  ap¬ 
plying  all  kinds  of  vile  epithets  to  him,  because 
he  is  no  better  than  he  is.  Of  course,  he  isn’t  per¬ 
fect.  It  is  unreasonable  to  expect  him  to  be 
perfect.  You  can’t  perfect  a  race  in  a  single  gen¬ 
eration:  and  nobody  knows  that  better  than  the 
white  man  himself;  and  he  of  all  men  ought  to 


92 


be  the  last  one  to  upbraid  him.  Yes,  the  Negro 
has  faults,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  he  should  be 
shot  down  like  a  dog,  why  his  rights,  civil  and 
political,  should  be  trampled  in  the  dust,  why  he 
should  be  treated  in  the  brutal  and  inhuman  man¬ 
ner  in  which  he  has  been  treated  in  the  South. 
You  can’t  make  him  a  better  man  by  that  kind  of 
treatment.  If  3mu  think  he  needs  reforming,  if 
you  want  to  improve  his  condition,  you  have  got 
to  use  other  methods,  you  have  got  to  come  to  him 
in  a  different  spirit.  You  Can’t  play  the  part  of 
the  bully,  the  ruffian,  and  hope  to  have  any  influ¬ 
ence  with  him  for  good;  you  can’t  put  your  foot  on 
his  neck,  deny  his  manhood,  treat  him  as  an  infe¬ 
rior,  as  fit  only  to  be  a  servant,  and  hope  to  h^ve 
him  profit  by  anything  that  you  may  say  to  him. 
He  may  be  helped,  he  needs  help,  but  you  have 
got  to  clear  out  of  his  way  the  bloody  murder¬ 
ers  that  throw  themselves  athwart  his  pathway, 
you  have  got  to  set  him  a  better  example.  If  the 
white  man  wants  to  help  the  Negro  to  be  a  better 
man,  he  must  begin  to  be  a  better  man  himself,  to 
stop  all  of  his  meanness.  After  that  bloody,  mur¬ 
derous,  treasonable  assault  at  Wilmington  upon 
law  and  order  and  the  most  sacred  rights  of  man, 
it  was  one  of  the  paragons  of  the  pulpit  in  that 
city,  even  the  great  Doctor  Hoge,  who  said:  “Now 
having  cast  out  Negro  leaders,  let  us  prove  to  the 
Negroes  that  we  are  really  their  true  friends. 
We  must  look  more  closely  after  their  industrial 


93 


* 


education,  and  by  precept  and  example  must  teach 
them  the  gospel  of  Christ  as  a  religion,  not  of 
emotion,  but  of  life  and  conduct.”  Is  there  any 
wonder  that  the  Negro  is  no  better  than  he  is  with 
such  examples  before  him,  with  such  beautiful  ex¬ 
ponents  of  Christianity  for  his  guide?  Men  hold¬ 
ing  themselves  up  as  examples,  who  the  day  before 
had  dyed  their  hands  in  their  brothers  blood. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression, — in  laying 
hold  of  this  mighty  instrument  of  prayer  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  ourselves,  let  us  not  forget  that  we  have 
shortcomings,  that  we  are  not  by  any  means  all 
that  we  ought  to  be,  and  that  God  can  help  us  to 
overcome  the  evil  that  is  in  us,  to  break  the  fet¬ 
ters  of  sin  that  bind  us,  and  make  us  freemen  in¬ 
deed.  The  individual  who  lays  hold  of  God,  in 
the  struggle  upward  against  his  lower  nature,  is 
sure  to  succeed.  And  so  with  a  race;  when  it  be¬ 
gins  reaching  out  after  God  in  earnest  prayer  for 
strength  to  overcome  its  besetting  sins,  it  is  sure 
to  prevail.  Pray?  Yes,  let  us  pray,  pray  without 
ceasing,  that  God  would  not  only  help  us  to  build 
ourselves  up  in  the  great  and  positive  elements 
that  go  to  make  up  a  true  manhood  and  woman¬ 
hood,  but  also  that  he  would  help  us  with  his  own 
great  might  to  resist  with  all  the  energy  of  our 
natures  the  things  which  stand  in  the  way  of  our 
progress,  which  tend  to  drag  us  down.  Prayer 
can  help  us  in  this  struggle, — let  us  lay  hold  of  it. 
Let  us  make  the  most  of  it  But  (2)  in  praying 


94 


we  must  not  stop  with  self,  we  must  not  forget  to 
pray  also  for  those  who  are  oppressing  us,  who 
have  their  heels  upon  our  necks,  and  whose  cry  is 
this  is  a  white  man’s  government.  Jesus  himself 
says,  “  Pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use  and 
persecute  you.”  An  elder  in  the  Mormon  church 
was  once  reminded  that  it  was  his  duty  to  pray 
for  his  enemies:  he  said,  “I  do  pray  for  them,  I 
pray  that  God  would  damn  them  and  send  them 
down  to  hell.”  That  is  what  we  would  naturally 
be  inclined  to  do;  that  is  what  doubtless  many  of 
us  have  often  done;  but  that  is  not  the  kind  of 
prayer  that  I  am  talking  about:  It  never  can  be 
right  for  us  to  pray  such  a  prayer.  We  are  to  pray 
that  God  would  have  mercy  upon  them;  that  he 
would  open  their  blind  eyes,  that  he  would  show 
them  the  error  of  their  ways,  that  he  would 
quicken  their  dead  consciences,  and  soften  their 
hard  hearts,  and  lead  them  to  conform  to  princi¬ 
ples  of  right,  of  justice  and  humanity.  Prayer 
can  do  wonders  in  this  respect.  You  remember 
how  Esau  felt  towards  Jacob:  he  hated  him  with 
perfect  hatred,  he  had  murder  in  his  heart:  he 
would  have  killed  him  had  he  met  him  at  the  time. 
And  even  after  the  lapse  of  twenty  years,  the  old 
feeling  was  still  there.  When  he  heard  of  his  re¬ 
turn,  he  started  to  meet  him  with  a  strong  band  of 
armed  men.  Poor  Jacob  was  terrified,  and  fell 
upon  his  knees  in  earnest  prayer  to  God  for  deliv¬ 
erance.  “And  Jacob  said,  O  God  of  my  father 


95 

\ 

Abraham,  and  God  of  my  father  Isaac,  the  Lord 
which  said  unto  me,  Return  into  thy  country,  and 
to  thy  kindred,  and  I  will  deal  well  with  thee,  I 
am  not  worthy  of  the  least  of  all  thy  mercies,  and 
of  all  the  truth  which  thou  hast  showed  to  thy 
servant,  for  with  my  staff  I  passed  over  this  Jor¬ 
dan,  and  now  I  am  become  two  bands.  Deliver 
me  I  pray  thee  from  the  hand  of  my  brother  Esau; 
for  I  fear  him,  lest  he  will  come  and  smite  me,  and 
the  mother  with  the  children.”  And  with  what  re¬ 
sult  we  all  know.  The  record  is,  “  And  Jacob  lifted 
up  his  eyes  and  looked,  and  behold  Esau  came,  and 
with  him  four  hundred  men.”  And  what?  There 
was  a  conflict,  and  Jacob  and  his  whole  family 
were  annihilated?  Not  at  all.  “And  Esau  ran  to 
meet  him,  and  embraced  him,  and  fell  on  his  neck 
and  kissed  him,  and  they  wept.”  All  the  old 
grudge,  the  old  bitterness  and  hatred,  were  taken 
out  of  him,  and  love, — beautiful,  tender,  sympa¬ 
thetic  love, — took  its  place.  A  mighty  transforma¬ 
tion  was  wrought  in  answer  to  prayer.  The  two 
brothers,  long  estranged,  were  again  brought  to¬ 
gether  on  terms  of  friendship:  we  see  them  in 
each  other’s  arms,  weeping  on  each  other’s  necks. 
And  in  this  there  is  a  hint  for  us  as  a  people  in  our 
relations  with  the  Southern  whites.  We  can  do 
in  our  imperiled  condition  among  them,  just  what 
Jacob  did  in  the  dire  emergency  which  confronted 
him, — betake  ourselves  to  prayer:  and  the  same 
God  who  interposed  to  soften  the  heart  of  Esau, 
will  also  interpose  in  our  behalf. 


9<5 


How  are  we  to  pray  ?  In  what  spirit  are  we  to 
pray  ?  We  are  to  pray, — whether  for  ourselves  or 
for  the  Southern  whites, — if  we  are  to  succeed,  in 
the  same  humble,  earnest,  persistent,  and  loving 
spirit  that  Jacob  did.  He  came  to  God  in  the  atti¬ 
tude  of  an  humble  suppliant,  in  the  consciousness 
of  his  own  weakness  and  imperfections.  “I  am 
not  worthy  of  the  least  of  all  thy  mercies,”  is  the 
opening  sentence  of  his  appeal.  It  was  not  in  the 
spirit  of  self-righteousness,  but  of  humble  peni¬ 
tence  that  he  came:  so  must  we. 

He  came  to  God  in  a  spirit  of  deep  earnestness. 
His  whole  soul  cried  unto  God  for  deliverance  from 
his  brother  Esau.  It  came  up  from  the  great  depths 
of  his  nature,  and  expressed  a  need  that  was  most 
keenly  felt  by  him:  so  it  must  be  with  us. 

He  came  to  God  in  the  spirit  of  resolute  deter¬ 
mination  to  get  what  he  wanted.  All  night  he 
wrestled  with  God  in  prayer.  And  as  the  day  be¬ 
gan  to  dawn,  the  angel  said,  “Let  me  go,  Jacob;” 
but  his  reply  was,  “I  will  not  let  thee  go  till  thou 
bless  me:”  And  he  did  not  let  him  go  until  he  had 
the  assurance  that  he  had  prevailed;  so  must  we. 
If  we  are  not  in  earnest,  dead  in  earnest,  are  not 
animated  by  a  spirit  that  will  not  take  nay  as  an 
answer,  we  cannot,  will  not  succeed. 

He  came  to  God  in  the  spirit  of  love:  there  is  no 
evidence  of  any  bitterness  or  hatred  on  his  part 
towards  his  brother.  This  was  the  spirit  exhibited 
by  the  Lord  Jesus  upon  the  cross  when  He  prayed, 


97 


“Father,  forgive  them,” — his  murderers,  the  men 
who  had  nailed  Him  to  the  cross,  and  who  were 
looking  on  with  fiendish  delight  as  his  life  was 
ebbing  away;  and  the  spirit  that  was  exhibited  by 
Stephen,  while  he  was  being  stoned  to  death,  when 
he  said:  -“Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge.” 
And  this  is  the  spirit  in  which  we  must  come  to 
God.  It  is  notan  easy  thing  to  do,  I  admit.  When 
we  think  of  all  that  we  have  suffered  and  are  still 
suffering  in  the  South, — of  the  hundreds  and  thou¬ 
sands  of  our  people  who  have  been  shot  down,  mur¬ 
dered  in  cold  blood,  and  of  all  the  other  villainous 
acts  that  have  been  perpetrated  upon  us,  with  a 
view  of  humiliating  us,  of  crushing  the  manhood 
out  of  us,  it  is  very  difficult  not  to  feel  some  bit¬ 
terness,  not  to  be  full  of  hate.  But  if  we  are  to 
have  any  influence  with  God,  in  this  matter,  we 
have  got  to  get  rid  of  that  feeling.  God  will  not 
answer  our  prayers,  if  we  come  in  any  such  spirit. 
And,  therefore,  I  am  especially  anxious  that  this 
element  of  prayer  should  enter  into  the  great 
problem  which  we  are  seeking  to  solve  in  this  coun¬ 
try,  for  our  own  sakes,  as  well  as  for  the  sake  of  the 
whites.  It  will  do  them  good  to  have  us  pray  for 
them,  and  it  will  do  us  good  to  pray  for  them,  since 
it  will  have  the  effect,  if  we  enter  into  it  with  the 
purpose  and  determination  of  succeeding,  of  root¬ 
ing  out  of  our  hearts  that  bitterness,  which  these 
awful  outrages  which  are  constantly  occurring  in 
the  South  tend  to  engender.  It  will  be  a  good 
thing  for  us  as  a  race, if  we  can  get  into  an  attitude 


9S 


of  prayer,  and  keep  in  that  attitude.  It  will  put  us 
in  touch  with  God,  and  keep  us  in  touch  with  Him. 
And  then,  the  gates  of  hell  will  not  be  able  to  pre¬ 
vail  against  us. 

I  believe  in  the  reality  of  prayer.  I  believe  in 
the  power  of  prayer.  I  believe  that  our  cause  can 
be  helped  by  prayer.  This  doesn’t  mean  that  we 
are  to  do  nothing  but  pray,  that  we  are  to  fold  our 
arms  and  expect  God  to  fight  our  battles  for  us:  nor 
does  it  mean  that  we  are  not  to  stand  up  for  our 
rights,  that  we  are  not  to  agitate,  and  protest 
against  wrong, — the  agitation  must  go  on;  the  de¬ 
mand  which  we  are  making  for  equal  recognition 
of  our  rights,  civil  and  political,  under  the  Consti¬ 
tution,  must  never  be  relinquished, — what  it  means 
is,  that  in  the  midst  of  the  conflict,  while  w’e  are 
doing  all  we  can,  while  we  are  seeking  to  make  the 
most  of  ourselves  and  of  our  opportunities,  we  are 
at  the  same  time  to  lay  fast  hold  of  the  Almighty, 
to  keep  ourselves  and  our  wants  ever  before  Him, 
and  to  look  to  Him  for  help  in  every  time  of  need. 
“Wait  on  the  Lord,”  is  the  exhortation ;  look  to  Him 
for  strength,  for  courage,  for  wisdom  to  guide,  to 
direct:  in  a  word,  don’t  attempt  to  lift  this  great 
weight  that  is  pressing  upon  you,  and  holding  you 
down,  in  this  country,  in  your  own  strength;  don’t 
attempt  to  fight  your  battles  alone,  with  human  in¬ 
struments  alone;  link  yourself  with  God,  take  Him 
into  your  confidence;  look  to  Him,  rely  upon  Him. 

With  this  wonderful  thought  before  us, — the 
thought  that  in  this  struggle  through  which  we  are 


t 


99 

passing  in  this  country,  it  is  possible  to  have  the 
Almighty ‘associated  with  us, — together  with  the 
encouraging  signs  to  which  our  attention  was  di¬ 
rected  on  last  Sabbath,  if  I  am  asked,  What  of  the 
night,  for  the  Negro  race  in  this  country?  I  say, 
unhesitatingly,  Well.  There  is  a  future  here  for 
us;  in  this  land  there  are  better  things  in  store  for 
us. 

“Out  of  the  dark  the  circling  sphere 
Is  rounding  onward  to  the  light; 

We  see  not  yet  the  full  day  here, 

But  we  do  see  the  paling  light; 

And  Hope,  that  lights  her  fadeless  fires, 

And  Faith,  that  shines,  a  heavenly  will, 

And  Love,  that  courage  re-inspires, — 

These  stars  have  been  above  us  still. 

O  sentinels  whose  tread  we  heard 

Through  long  hours,  when  we  could  not  see, 

Pause  now;  exchange  with  cheer  the  word, — 

The  unchanging  watchword,  Liberty. 

Look  backward,  how  much  has  been  won! 

Look  round,  how  much  is  yet  to  win ! 

The  watchers  of  the  night  are  done; 

The  watchers  of  the  day  begin. 

O  Thou,  whose  mighty  patience  holds 
The  night  and  day  alike  in  view, 

Thy  will  our  dearest  hope  enfolds: 

O  keep  us  steadfast,  patient,  true.” 

I  have  had  a  three-fold  object  in  preaching  these 
sermons:  (i.)  To  let  the  white  people  know  that 
we  are  conscious  of  what  our  rights  are,  and  that 
we  mean  to  have  them.  (2.)  The  hope  of  helping 


IOO 


to  awaken  the  sleeping  conscience  of  the  American 
people  to  the  wrongs  that  we  are  suffering.  And 
(3)  to  inspire  those  of  our  own  people,  who  may  be 
disposed  to  become  despondent,  with  hope  and  with 
renewed  determination  to  keep  up  the  struggle. 

I  thank  you  for  the  patience  with  which  you  have 
listened  to  me  during  these  weeks:  and  trust  that 
all  of  us  realize,  as  we  have  never  done  before,  the 
seriousness  of  the  task  that  is  before  us.  The  up¬ 
lifting  of  a  race,  with  all  the  tremendous  odds 
against  us  in  this  land,  is  no  child’s  play.  It  re¬ 
quires  work,  hard  work;  true  and  brave  hearts: — 

“Men  of  faith,  and  not  of  faction, 

Men  of  lofty  aim  in  action, 

Strong  and  stalwart  ones; 

Men  whom  highest  hope  inspires, 

Men  whom  purest  honor  fires, 

Men  who  trample  self  beneath  them, 

Men  who  never  fail  their  brothers, 

True,  however  false  are  others.” 

May  Goa  mke  us  such  men  and  women:  and  to 
this  work  y  we,  one  and  all,  dedicate  ourselves 
to-day.  W  lever  we  can  do,  as  individuals,  as 
families,  a1  urches,  to  lift  ourselves,  and  this  race 
with  whici  are  identified,  to  higher  levels,  let 
us  do  it,  am  o  it  with  our  might. 

“O  small  beginnings,  ye  are  great  and  strong, 

Based  on  a  faithful  heart  and  weariless  brain.” 

And  these  we  must  have, — “  the  faithful  heart, 
and  the  weariless  brain,”  if  we  are  to  “build  the 
future  fair,  and  conquer  wrong.” 


/ 


